Items tagged with telescope
Springtime brings with it the Flower Moon to the delight of skywatchers, along with a penumbral lunar eclipse. According to the Farmer's Almanac, any full moon in May is called the "Flower" Moon.
Spring has finally sprung for many of us, and with it comes a bounty of flowers signifying the season is upon us. With...
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NASA scientists are left scratching their heads after new data from its coveted James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) found hints of water vapor around a distant exoplanet. The water vapor was detected while observing exoplanet GJ 486 b using Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec).
Scientists using data from JWST...
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NASA has shared an animation that attempts to put the colossal size of supermassive black holes into perspective. There are more than 100 of these mammoth black holes, such as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) at the center of our very own Milky Way, confirmed by direct measurements.
While there are smaller black holes that...
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A NASA balloon-borne telescope captured phenomenal images of the Tarantula Nebula and Antennae Galaxies from 108,000 feet above Earth's surface. The Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) was launched earlier this month from Wanaka, New Zealand.
When one thinks of incredible images from space captured...
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NASA's Lucy mission captured its first images of Trojan asteroids in late March. The four Jupiter Trojan asteroids the spacecraft viewed were Eurybates, Polymele, Leucus, and Orus.
Most of Lucy's target asteroids, called "Trojans" after characters from Greek mythology, are left over from the solar system's...
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A team of researchers has shown off a new machine-learning technique by enhancing the Event Horizon Telescope's images of a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth. The technique, called PRIMO, enhances the fidelity and sharpness of radio interferometry images.
The Event...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took a spectacular image of Uranus, showcasing its ability to capture the "faintest dusty rings." Uranus' rings have only been captured by two other instruments: the Voyager 2 spacecraft and the Keck Observatory with advanced adaptive optics.
When someone thinks of Uranus...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured a sensational image of a supernova remnant created by a stellar explosion 340 years ago (as seen from Earth). The remnant, known as Cassiopeia A, is the youngest known remnant from an exploding, massive star in our Milky Way.
While the image from JWST is not the...
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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope continues to provide awe-inspiring images of deep space, as the space agency shares an image the observatory captured of galaxy M100 as its Picture of the Day. Hubble captured the superb image using its Wide Field Camera 3. The image was previously featured as Picture of the Day back on...
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A Yale astronomer spotted a 200,000-light-year-long bridge connecting a runaway black hole to the galaxy it is attempting to escape from. The supermassive black hole, weighing more than 20 million Suns, is traveling so fast that it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes.
The bridge first appeared to be a...
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The European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia mission has helped to unveil a new family of black holes, and its newest members are closer to Earth than any other known black hole. Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2 are respectively located approximately 1560 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus and...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captures a rare sighting of a Wolf-Rayet star before it goes supernova. As of right now, Wolf-Rayet 124 (WR 124) is 30 times the mass of our Sun and has shed 10 Suns' worth of material.
Wolf-Rayet stars are some of the brightest and most briefly detectable stars known...
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NASA shared an image of a "jellyfish galaxy" captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy, known as JO201, resides in the constellation Cetus, which is named after a sea monster from ancient Greek mythology.
The Hubble Space Telescope, named in honor of astronomer Edwin Hubble, has captured more than 1.5...
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Following two decades of monitoring a dusty gas filament (known as X7) from W. M. Keck Observatory, astronomers believe the cloud will eventually get pulled toward Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) and later "cause some fireworks" as it gets consumed by the supermassive black hole. Astronomers project that Sgr A* will...
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Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile discovered a Jupiter-like exoplanet in the AF Leporis system. The system is said to be similar to our own Solar System, with a star roughly the same mass, size, and temperatures as the Sun.
Two groups of astronomers took on the task of studying star catalogs...
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A global team of scientists using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has gotten a glimpse into the heart of a distant quasar. Quasars are extremely luminous cosmic monsters located at the center of distant galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes. The light captured in these images is said to have traveled toward...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) capability to capture deep space in incredible detail has led to an initial collection of 21 research papers, providing new insights into things such as the beginnings of star formation. Webb's images have unveiled an intricate network of gas and dust in nearby galaxies, and...
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Enigmatic features across Saturn's rings known as spokes tantalize and baffle NASA scientists. The spokes were first discovered by NASA's Voyager mission in the 1980s, and have been observed in the years preceding and following the planet's equinox. As Saturn's autumnal equinox of the northern hemisphere approaches on...
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NASA astronomers and scientists will be keeping a close eye on an asteroid that is heading for a rendezvous with Earth's orbit later this week. Potentially hazardous asteroid (199145) 2005 YY128 is massive, and it is thought to measure between 1,870 and 4,265 feet across.
Asteroid 199145 was first detected by the...
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A strange occurrence was caught in the night sky in Hawaii that may have left some thinking there was a glitch in the matrix. The actual cause of the green laser light show in the night sky was a satellite, first believed to be emanating from a NASA satellite orbiting Earth. Upon further investigation, however, it is...
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Astronomers using the European Space Agency's CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) were astonished to detect a ring around a dwarf planet. The dwarf planet, Quaoar, is a trans-Neptunian object that lies within our own Solar System.
A group of researchers detected the ring around Quaoar using a series of...
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For the first time ever, researchers have been able to examine very compact structures of star clusters inside galaxies, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The research was recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Albert Einstein developed his theory of general...
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