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Astronomy TOP STORY

XMM-Newton Discovers Scorching Gas In Milky Way's Hal

Milky Way's halo

ESA's XMM-Newton has discovered that gas lurking within the Milky Way's halo reaches far hotter temperatures than previously thought and has a different chemical make-up than predicted, challenging our understanding of our galactic home.

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Astronomy TOP STORIES

Connecting The Dots In The Sky Could Shed New Light On Dark Matter

Mars Imaged by Hubble

Astrophysicists have come a step closer to understanding the origin of a faint glow of gamma rays covering the night sky.

First Sighting Of Hot Gas Sloshing In A Galaxy Cluster

ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has spied hot gas sloshing around within a galaxy cluster - a never-before-seen behaviour that may be driven by turbulent merger events.

Merger of Milky Way with Dwarf Galaxy Dated

The dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus collided with the Milky Way probably approximately 11.5 billion years ago.

Stars Need A Partner To Spin The Universe's Brightest Explosions

When it comes to the biggest and brightest explosions seen in the Universe, University of Warwick astronomers have found that it takes two stars to make a gamma-ray burst.

Stellar Heavy Metals Can Trace History Of Galaxies

Astronomers have cataloged signs of 9 heavy metals in the infrared light from supergiant and giant stars.

Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Yield Independent Measure of Universe's Expansion

A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has measured the universe's expansion rate using a technique that is completely independent of any previous method.

SOFIA Reveals How the Swan Nebula Hatched

One of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions in our galaxy, the Omega, or Swan, Nebula, came to resemble the shape resembling a swan's neck we see today only relatively recently.

Binary Star V Sagittae Will Explode as a Very Bright 'Nova' by Century's End

Currently, the faint star V Sagittae, V Sge, in the constellation Sagitta, is barely visible, even in mid-sized telescopes. However, around the year 2083, this innocent star will explode, becoming as bright as Sirius, the brightest star visible in the night sky.

LIGO-Virgo: Gravitational Wave Network Catches Another Neutron Star Collision

On April 25, 2019, the LIGO Livingston Observatory picked up what appeared to be gravitational ripples from a collision of two neutron stars.

Simulating The First Image From WFIRST

Imagine a fleet of 100 Hubble Space Telescopes, deployed in a strategic space-invader-shaped array a million miles from Earth, scanning the universe at warp speed.

NASA's Hubble Survey's Gigantic Galaxy

This majestic spiral galaxy might earn the nickname the "Godzilla Galaxy" because it may be the largest known in the local universe. The galaxy, UGC 2885, is 2.5 times wider than our Milky Way and contains 10 times as many stars.

NASA's Great Observatories Help Build 3-D Visualization of Exploded Star

Astronomers and visualization specialists from NASA's Universe of Learning program have combined the visible, infrared, and X-ray vision of NASA's Great Observatories to create a three-dimensional representation of the dynamic Crab Nebula, the tattered remains of an exploded star.

Galactic Pyrotechnics From 23 Million Light Years Away

A galaxy about 23 million light years away is the site of impressive, ongoing fireworks. Rather than paper, powder and fire, this galactic light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas.

Hubble's Close-Up of Spiral Galaxy's Disk And Bulge

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows IC 2051, a galaxy in the southern constellation of Mensa (the Table Mountain) lying about 85 million light-years away.

Fermi Links Nearby Pulsar's Gamma-ray 'Halo' To Antimatter Puzzle

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a faint but sprawling glow of high-energy light around a nearby pulsar.

Webb Telescope to Search for Young Brown Dwarfs and Rogue Planets

How small are the smallest celestial objects that form like stars, but don't produce their own light? How common are they compared to full-fledged stars?

Distant Milky Way-like Galaxies Reveal Star Formation History Of The Universe

Look at this new radio image covered with dots, each of which is a distant galaxy! The brightest spots are galaxies that are powered by supermassive black holes and shine bright in radio light.