Space and astronomy news
About 10,000 light years away, in the constellation Centaurus, is a planetary nebula called NGC 5307. A planetary nebula is the remnant of a star like our Sun, when it has reached what can be described as the end of its life. This Hubble image of NGC 5307 not only makes you wonder about the …
Continue reading “This Star Has Reached the End of its Life”
Astronomers have discovered, for the first time, moons forming in the disk of debris around a large exoplanet. Astronomers have suspected for a long time that this is how larger planets—like Jupiter in our own Solar System—get their moons. It’s all happening around a very young star named PDS 70, about 370 light years away …
Continue reading “Here’s a First. Astronomers See a Moon Forming Around a Baby Exoplanet”
At this year’s Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC), a team from the ESA presented a model for how humanity could settle the Milky Way galaxy.
Located in the direction of the Hydra constellation, over 15 million light years from Earth, is the barred spiral galaxy known as Messier 83.
Welcome to another edition of Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at the “little horse” – the Equuleus constellation. Enjoy! In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of the then-known 48 constellations. This treatise, known as the Almagest, …
A team of international astronomers recently captured the first image of a newly-formed planet, which will allow astronomers to test models of planetary formation
The Hubble Space Telescope has been in space for 28 years, producing some of the most beautiful and scientifically important images of the cosmos that humanity has ever taken. But let’s face it, Hubble is getting old, and it probably won’t be with us for too much longer. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is in …
Continue reading “What Comes After James Webb and WFIRST? Four Amazing Future Space Telescopes”
Using over a decade of data collected by the Chandra X-ray observatory, a new study indicates that the Alpha Centauri system could be hospitable to life.
An international team of astronomers has created the largest map of the movements of galaxies within our Supercluster to date.
Thanks to a new study by an international team of astronomers, we now have the tools we need to map the far side of our galaxy.