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Category: astronomy

An impression of the encounter between the Milky Way galaxy and the smaller "Sausage" galaxy about 8 billion to 10 billion years ago. The record of this ancient encounter is still preserved in the velocities and chemistry of the stars. (V. Belokurov (Cambridge, UK); Based on image by ESO/Juan Carlos Muñoz)

Astronomers Discover Ancient Galactic Collision that Reshaped the Milky Way

July 6, 2018

A team of astronomers found evidence of a cataclysmic collision between the Milky Way and a dwarf galaxy some 8 to 10 billion years ago. The astronomers refer to this galactic crash as a ‘defining event’ in the early history of the Milky Way. They say the collision between our galaxy, and what is being […]

This image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the centre of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. (ESO/A. Müller et al.)

Astronomers Snap First Baby Picture of Newborn Exoplanet

July 5, 2018

An international group of astronomers has captured what is being called the first confirmed image of a planet forming near a young dwarf star. The group, led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, found the newborn planet making its way through a protoplanetary disk of dust and gas that […]

Artist’s impression of Oumuamua, the first visitor to our solar system from interstellar space. (ESO/M. Kornmessar via Wikimedia Commons)

Oumuamua: It’s a Comet, It’s an Asteroid, No, wait, It’s a Comet

June 29, 2018

An odd rocky cigar-shaped object called Oumuamua made news late last year when it was determined to be of interstellar origin. It was touted as the solar system’s first visitor from another star system. Some scientists first pegged Oumuamua as a comet soon after its discovery. A few months later studies indicated that it was […]

An isolated hill in the Medusae Fossae Formation. The effect of wind erosion on this hill is evident by its streamlined shape. (High Resolution Stereo Camera/European Space Agency)

Volcanic Activity Created Martian Geological Oddity

June 19, 2018

Scientists have long been puzzled by a mysterious formation located near the equator of Mars called Medusae Fossae. A new study from a pair of scientists – Lujendra Ojha and Kevin Lewis – at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore suggests that the large deposit of soft rock was probably formed as a result of violent volcanic eruptions that […]

Cometary-type interplanetary dust particle, magnified by an electron microscope. (Hope Ishii, UH Mānoa)

Pre-Solar System Dust Found in the Atmosphere

June 15, 2018

A research team led by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology say they have discovered the remains of the formation of the solar system in some interstellar dust. The dust particles, which were gathered in Earth’s atmosphere by NASA aircraft, are thought to have been cast off from […]

Artist impression of nanoscale diamonds surrounding a young star in the Milky Way. Recent Green Bank Telescope and Australia Telescope Compact Array observations have identified the telltale radio signal of diamond dust around 3 such stars, suggesting they are a source of the so-called anomalous microwave emission. (S. Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Astronomers Detect Nanodiamonds in Three Baby Star Systems

June 11, 2018

Astronomers have detected swirls of diamonds, hundreds of thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand, in the protoplanetary or circumstellar disks of three baby star systems in the Milky Way – V892 Tau, HD 97048, and MWC 297. After conducting a series of observations with the US National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope […]

Images of 2015 BZ509 obtained at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBTO) that established its retrograde co-orbital nature. The bright stars and the asteroid (circled in yellow) appear black and the sky white in this negative image. (C. Veillet/Large Binocular Telescope Observatory)

Asteroid May Have Immigrated From Another Solar System to Ours

May 24, 2018

An odd cigar-shaped object name Oumuamua made news late last year when it was determined to be of interstellar origin. It was touted as the solar system’s first visitor from another star system. A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters details the discovery of what scientists are calling the […]

How Will Our Sun Die?

May 10, 2018

Scientists say our Sun has been shining for about the last 4.6 billion years. They also say the Sun is expected to have enough hydrogen to fuel nuclear fusion in its core to allow it to continue shining as it has for about another 5 billion years. Along with creating solar energy, the Sun’s hydrogen […]

Artist rendering of the exoplanet WASP-107b transiting its highly active K-type main sequence star. (ESA/Hubble, NASA, M. Kornmesser)

First Detection of Helium in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

May 4, 2018

Scientists say for the first several hundred thousand years or so after the Big Bang, there were virtually only two elements in the universe, hydrogen, and helium. A hydrogen atom is made of only one proton and one electron, and a helium atom has two each of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Hydrogen and then helium are […]

This is an enhanced-color image of Mecury taken during NASA’s MESSENGER mission in 2015. (NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab / Carnegie Inst. Washington)

Calculations Show Mercury Has a Thin but Dense Crust

May 1, 2018

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and very little is really known about this hot rocky orb. So far, only two space probes have ever studied Mercury. NASA’s Mariner 10 flew past the planet three times between 1973 and 1974. The flybys allowed scientists to map about half the planet, discover its thin […]

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