Astronomy | SpaceRef

Astronomy TOP STORY

Hubble Finds a Black Hole Igniting Star Formation in a Dwarf Galaxy

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Often portrayed as destructive monsters that hold light captive, black holes take on a less villainous role in the latest research from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

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Astronomy TOP STORIES

There Are 40 Billion Billions Of Black Holes In The Universe

Mars Imaged by Hubble

How many black holes are out there in the Universe? This is one of the most relevant and pressing questions in modern astrophysics and cosmology.

A Tranquil Galaxy With An Explosive Past

The lazily winding spiral arms of the spectacular galaxy NGC 976 fill the frame of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

ALMA Catches An Intruder Redhanded In A Rarely Detected Stellar Flyby Event

Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) made a rare detection of a likely stellar flyby event in the Z Canis Majoris (Z CMa) star system.

1,000-light-year Wide Bubble Surrounding Earth Is The Source Of All Nearby, Young Stars

The Earth sits in a 1,000-light-year-wide void surrounded by thousands of young stars -- but how did those stars form?

Too Much Heavy Metal Stops Stars Producing

Stars are giant factories that produce most of the elements in the Universe - including the elements in us, and in the Earth's metal deposits. But what stars produce changes over time.

New Treasure Trove Of Globular Clusters Holds Clues About Galaxy Evolution

A survey completed using a combination of ground and space-based telescopes yielded a treasure trove of previously unknown globular clusters - old, dense groups of thousands of stars that all formed at the same time - in the outer regions of the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A.

Simulated Image Shows How NASA's Roman Could Expand on Hubble's Deepest View

A team of astrophysicists has created a simulated image that shows how the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could conduct a mega-exposure similar to but far larger than Hubble's celebrated Ultra Deep Field Image.

Real-time Alert System Heralds A New Era In Fast Radio Burst Research

McGill University scientists have developed a new system for sharing the enormous amount of data being generated by the CHIME radio telescope in its search for fast radio bursts (FRBs), the puzzling extragalactic phenomenon that is one of the hottest topics in modern-day astronomy.

FAST Detects Coherent Interstellar Magnetic Field With A Technique Conceived At Arecibo

Magnetic fields are the essential, but often "secret" ingredients of the interstellar medium and the process of making stars.

Astronomers Witness A Dying Star Reach Its Explosive End

For the very first time, astronomers have imaged in real time the dramatic end to a red supergiant's life, watching the massive star's rapid self-destruction and final death throes before it collapsed into a Type II supernova.

Discovery Of The Least 'Metallic' Stellar Structure In The Milky Way

98.5% of the Sun is made up of two light chemical elements, hydrogen and helium, while the remaining 1.5% consists of other heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, and iron.

The Oasis Of New Physics In The Dune Of The Baby Universe

In a Physics Review Letters paper published on Dec 15th, an international research team, led by Cai Yifu, Professor of the University of Science and Technology of China, and his collaborators discovered the hypothetical possibility of resonantly generating primordial gravitational waves within the high energy physics when the universe was in the babyhood.

Planetary Nebula NGC 7027

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory contributes to the understanding of planetary nebulas by studying the hottest and most energetic processes still at work in these beautiful objects.

James Webb Telescope Rolls To The Launch Pad

Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope onboard, is rolled out to the launch pad, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021, at Europe's Spaceport, the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.

Planetary Nebula IC 418

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory contributes to the understanding of planetary nebulas by studying the hottest and most energetic processes still at work in these beautiful objects.