Items tagged with telescope
NASA's Webb telescope detected carbon-bearing molecules within an exoplanet 8.6 times larger than Earth, including methane and carbon dioxide. It is possible that the exoplanet, known as K2-18 b, could be a Hycean planet, meaning it potentially possesses a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, as well as an ocean-covered...
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The Moon will be at its brightest and fullest as it passes by the ringed planet Saturn in the night sky this week. This is the second full Moon of August, making it the year's only Super Blue Moon.
Saturn comes to opposition of Earth's Moon nearly every year. While it takes one Earth year for our home planet to...
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Observations of the planet Neptune have led astronomers and scientists to believe the disappearance of the distant planet's cloud coverage was caused by none other than our very own sun. New research concludes that the disappearance of the clouds and the subsequent reappearance of them were linked to the solar...
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Giant megastorms unique to the planet Saturn have scientists pondering what causes the storms to leave impacts on the giant gas planet for a hundred years or more. A new research paper dives into the dilemma utilizing data from the Cassini mission and the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope.
In 2020, NASA stated that...
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NASA is seeking out the help of the public to keep an eye on the ice giants Uranus and Neptune as its New Horizons spacecraft observes the duo from deep space. The mission team is inviting all amateur astronomers to help make "a real contribution to space science."
New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, and has since passed Jupiter
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The Perseid meteor shower is about to be in full swing and you can catch some falling stars without having to leave the comfort of your home. The peak of the summer shower is expected to be tonight and into the morning hours of August 13, 2023.
Sky watchers may have already noticed an uptick in the amount of...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected water vapor in a planetary system that could help scientists answer the question of how Earth got its water. This is the first time that water has been detected in the terrestrial region of a protoplanetary disk known to host two or more protoplanets.
The new...
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A team of astronomers found a startling surprise while searching for the electromagnetic light from a gravitational wave event. Instead, the team found one of the most breathtaking 'switches on' of a black hole ever detected.
The phenomenal event was first detected by Dr. Samantha Oates, an astronomer at the...
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Scientists have used exotic stars to hear the universe's gravitational waves in what they call a "cosmic symphony". The team was made up of more than 190 scientists from the US and Canada using pulsars to search for gravitational waves over a period of 15 years.
The large group of astrophysicists employed large...
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An asteroid roughly the size of a house will be making a nearby flyby of Earth tonight. Asteroid 2023 MU2 will be able to be viewed zipping by our home planet via a live feed later today.
2023 MU2 was actually only discovered on June 21, 2023, and announced the next day. The near-Earth asteroid is estimated to be...
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NASA used images and data from its Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory to produce a symphonic sonification of the supermassive black hole located at the center of the Milky Way. New evidence provided by IXPE suggests Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) awakened from its slumber around 200...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has been able to rule out an exoplanet having a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c is described by authors of a recent study on the findings as a Venus twin.
When most think about the Webb telescope, spectacular images of the cosmos come to mind, unveiling space...
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Stargazers will be able to view a rare alignment of five planets in the night sky Saturday morning. Mercury, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, and Saturn will all be visible just before sunrise.
While planets aligning in the starry night sky are not unusual, having five of them perfectly align at the same time is a rarer...
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An international team of astronomers has discovered the second-ever multiplanetary circumbinary system, giving Star Wars fans more hope that one day they might be able to travel to a Tatooine-like planet. The newly found planet, BEBOP-1c, joins TOI-1338b, which was discovered in the same system in 2020.
A...
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A pair of supermassive black holes, known as a binary black hole system, emitted a flare that is brighter than a trillion stars. The duo is located in galaxy OJ287 and are so close together they appear as one dot in the night sky.
Galaxy OJ287 lies in the direction of the constellation Cancer at approximately 5...
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A new study has identified a chemically distinct star located in the halo of the Milky Way, stating it provides evidence of the deaths of the universe's first stars. The research team says the new find could represent the very first evidence of a pair-instability supernova (PISNe) from the early universe.
Numerical...
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Recent discoveries of previously unexplained structures in the center of the Milky Way have stunned astrophysicists. New radio telescope images revealed hundreds of filaments along the galactic plane, believed to have originated only a few million years ago, as a result a an outflow from Sagittarius A*, the...
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A newly discovered asteroid has been detected and is said to be a quasi-moon, or fake moon, of Earth. The fake moon is actually asteroid 2023 FW13 and orbits the Sun in sync with Earth. Its orbit extends so far that "it sweeps out halfway to Mars and in halfway to Venus," according to a recent tweet from Sky and...
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Astronomers believe they have detected some of the best evidence yet of a rare intermediate-sized black hole lurking at the heart of a globular star cluster. The discovery of the mid-sized black hole located 6,000 light-years from Earth was made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Typically, black holes come in...
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The world's most powerful ground-based solar telescope captured new close-up images of the Sun that are scorching hot. The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope's images highlight an assortment of sunspots and peaceful regions of the Sun.
A mosaic of eight images was released...
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Astronomers spotted an intergalactic explosion 10 times brighter than any recorded supernova (exploding star). The event, called AT2021lwx, was first detected in 2020 and is believed to be the largest explosion ever recorded.
The event was at first thought to be unremarkable, due to the fact there was no indication...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) snapped an image of a nearby young star, Formalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt seen in infrared outside our own solar system. Astronomers were stunned when they found the dusty structures are more complex than they had first thought.
NASA's Hubble Telescope...
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