Items tagged with astronomy
A pair of meteor showers should provide sky watchers plenty to be excited about in the month of May. Eta Aquariids will open up the show of fireballs, with tau Herculids closing out the show at the end of the month.
Meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere are not uncommon, with most being particles that are no larger...
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New data suggests that post-starburst galaxies hold onto and compress large amounts of highly-concentrated, turbulent gas, but not to form stars as expected. The new data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows that these galaxies do not scatter all of their star-forming fuel, as previously...
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NASA believes it has solved a 60-year-old mystery pertaining to a process known as magnetic reconnection. Scientists with the space agency's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, or MMS, have developed a theory they believe explains how the most explosive type of magnetic reconnection occurs.
To put this in...
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Venus and Jupiter are on what looks like a collision source in the night sky, in a rare otherworldly event. The two planets have been inching closer to one another every day this month.
If you looked up at the sky this morning, you may have noticed what appeared to be two bright stars close to one another. Chances...
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If you have ever wanted to find your very own piece of a meteorite, now may be your chance. Astronomers are predicting that a bright fireballe that lit up the sky in Ontario may have littered the area with meteorite fragments when it smashed into Earth's atmosphere.
On April 17th, a fireball lit up the sky in...
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A quartet of planets is about to align with the Moon and you won't need a telescope to view the heavenly event. Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn will all be visible to the naked eye.
It isn't often that the alignment of so many planets is viewable without the aid of a telescope or pair of binoculars. It tends to...
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The mystery behind a radiant spinning whirlpool in the night sky in Hawaii on April 17th has been solved. The "night spiral" was actually created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage rocket, and not a UFO.
Footage of an eerie spinning spiral was captured by the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera on Maun Kea in Hawaii on...
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Astronomers have confirmed that some "red giant" stars in a binary system are being diminished by their voracious neighbors in a new research paper. The team of researchers from the University of Sydney says the finding is critical in understanding the life of stars in the Milky Way.
"Red giant" stars are plentiful...
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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the largest icy comet nucleus ever detected by astronomers. The comet's nucleus is larger than the state of Rhode Island, to put its size into perspective.
The gargantuan comet, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) has a nucleus that is approximately 50 times larger...
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In two new studies, Hubble astronomers have identified freakish weather conditions on two Jupiter-sized exoplanets. On one planet it is raining vaporized rock, while on another its upper atmosphere is getting hotter rather than cooler.
When temperatures here on Earth begin reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit and above...
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A group of astronomers and scientists have found the most distant astronomical object ever, a galaxy far, far away. The galaxy candidate, named HD1, is 13.5 billion light-years away and is discussed in a new research paper.
A group of international astronomers, including a team of researchers from the Center for...
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A new discovery of high-frequency-retrograde vorticity waves in the Sun defy all explanations. The discovery indicates that vortices on the surface of the Sun move at three times the speed as previously thought.
A group of researchers from New York University Abu Dhabi's (NYUAD) Center for Space Science recently...
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Astronomers have captured an image of an Odd Radio Circle (ORC) in high definition for the first time. In some instances, an ORC can have a diameter of hundreds of kiloparsecs (kps). In comparison, our Milky Way is about 30 kpc across and its center lies about 8 kpc from the Solar System.
The ambiguous ORCs were...
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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has hit a critical milestone in its mirror alignment and NASA says it is performing at or above expectations. The highly touted space telescope captured an image last week that excited its operators here on Earth.
JWST completed the critical milestone in its mirror alignment of...
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A pair of supermassive blackholes are locked in a fateful dance that draws them ever closer to one another. Once the pair finally merges in approximately 10,000 years, the result is expected to send out gravitational waves that will rattle space and time itself.
Astronomers have known that quasars could possess two...
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A new discovery reveals a unique feature when it comes to some of Saturn's aurorae. Observations made with the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii Island, shows that some of the ringed planet's aurorae are generated by swirling winds within its own atmosphere.
This unique observation differs from all other...
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A dazzling image of the aptly named Spanish Dancer galaxy was captured utilizing the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera. The galaxy is located around 70 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado.
Scientists and astronomers are eagerly awaiting the first images from NASA's James Webb...
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NASA has received the first image from its Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) since its launch in December of last year. The spectacular image shows the remains of a star that exploded in the 17th century, and it looks like a purple fireball hovering in space.
IXPE launched on December 9th of last year with...
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It feels as if we discover something new about space everyday, much of which challenges our existing understanding of the universe. Many current research projects are especially focused on studying the evolution of stars and their origins. Two particular stars recently piqued astronomers’ interest. Astronomers...
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While manmade space debris is still believed to be colliding with the Moon in early March, what that actual debris is believed to be has changed. Bill J. Gray, who originally linked the debris to a second stage booster from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched in 2015, has now determined it to be from a Chinese mission...
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A video shared by NASA on its Instagram page for National Pizza Day has gone viral for the most delicious reason. The video is from NASA's Juno mission, and showcases what cyclones look like in infrared on the giant gas planet.
NASA's Juno mission has been sending back some interesting pictures of Jupiter, which...
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NASA's Webb Telescope took its first images from deep space, which were cosmic selfies showcasing its primary mirror segments. They were taken using the NIRCam instrument aboard the space observatory.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) entered its final orbital destination around the second Lagrange point last...
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