Astronomy | SpaceRef

Astronomy TOP STORY

Newly Discovered Supernova Complicates Origin Story Theories

Mars Imaged by Hubble

A supernova discovered by an international group of astronomers including Carnegie's Tom Holoien and Maria Drout, and led by University of Hawaii's Ben Shappee, provides an unprecedented look at the first moments of a violent stellar explosion.

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Astronomy TOP STORIES

Black Hole 'Donuts' Are Actually 'Fountains'

Mars Imaged by Hubble

Based on computer simulations and new observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have found that the rings of gas surrounding active supermassive black holes are not simple donut shapes.

Treasure Trove of Planets Found Hiding in Dust

"Super-Earths" and Neptune-sized planets could be forming around young stars in much greater numbers than scientists thought, new research by an international team of astronomers suggests.

A White Dwarf Surprises Astronomers

Astronomers have detected a bright X-ray outburst from a star in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy almost 200,000 light-years from Earth.

Four New Gravitational Wave Detections Announced

The results are included in a new paper from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the VIRGO gravitational-wave detector, which presents analysis of 10 stellar-mass binary black hole mergers and one neutron star merger.

Hubble Uncovers Thousands of Globular Star Clusters Scattered Among Galaxies

Gazing across 300 million light-years into a monstrous city of galaxies, astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to do a comprehensive census of some of its most diminutive members: a whopping 22,426 globular star clusters found to date.

Fermi Traces the History of Starlight Across the Cosmos

Scientists using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have measured all the starlight produced over 90 percent of the universe's history.

Webb Space Telescope Moved To Testing Chambers

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is both large and heavy, so it requires some big equipment to move it from one place to another during testing.

Hubble Starts Sending Images Home Again

In the early morning of October 27, the Hubble Space Telescope targeted a field of galaxies not far from the Great Square in the constellation Pegasus.

Hubble Sets Sights on a Galaxy with a Bright Heart

This image shows galaxy NGC 5033's spiral arms, dotted with blue clusters of hot, young stars still forming, while older, cooler stars populate the galaxy's center causing it to appear redder.

Hubble Reveals a Giant Cosmic 'Bat Shadow'

Shadows on Earth can be mysterious and foreboding, but when they occur in space, they can convey information we otherwise could not know.

Astronomers Discover Giant Relic of Disrupted Tadpole Galaxy

A team of astronomers from Israel, the U.S. and Russia have identified a disrupted galaxy resembling a giant tadpole, complete with an elliptical head and a long, straight tail, about 300 million light years away from Earth.

The Most Luminous Galaxy Is Eating Its Neighbors

The most luminous galaxy ever discovered is cannibalizing not one, not two, but at least three of its smaller neighbors

Astronomers Find Picture of Hefty Star Before It Blew Up

Supernovas are the deathly explosions of massive stars.

Watch Exoplanet Beta Pictoris b Orbit Its Parent Star

ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured an unprecedented series of images showing the passage of the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b around its parent star.

Slow Death Of A Nearby Galaxy

Astronomers from CSIRO and The Australian National University have witnessed, in the finest detail ever, the slow death of a neighbouring dwarf galaxy, which is gradually losing its power to form stars.

Laboratory Experiments Probe The Formation of Stars and Planets

The cosmos is a void dotted with stars and an ever-increasing number of newly-observed planets beyond our solar system. Yet, how these stars and planets formed out of clouds of interstellar dust and gas remains mysterious.

Astronomers Unveil Growing Black Holes in Colliding Galaxies

Peering through thick walls of gas and dust surrounding the messy cores of merging galaxies, astronomers are getting their best view yet of close pairs of supermassive black holes as they march toward coalescence into mega black holes.