401–420 of 611 results
TRAPPIST-1 planet system artist's illustration

Exoplanets

Earth-size Planets Around Nearby Dwarf Star

Astronomers just discovered three planets, two of which are roughly the size of Earth, orbiting a dim nearby dwarf star. Their proximity makes their atmospheres ripe for observing.

Hypervelocity Binary System

Milky Way

Speedy Stars Weigh Milky Way’s Dark Matter Halo

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a . . . pair of hypervelocity stars? The surprising stellar duo may place constraints on the mass of our galaxy’s unseen dark matter halo.

Pro-Am Collaboration

NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Recovered from Emergency Mode

The Kepler team unexpectedly found the planet-hunting spacecraft in emergency mode on April 7th, but with the spacecraft recovered, hopes are high that its newest search, this time for rogue planets, is still on. Read on to see how amateur observations can help!

Gravitational Lens SDP.81

Galaxies

Dark Dwarf Galaxy Discovered

Astronomers using the ALMA array of radio dishes have detected a dwarf galaxy 4 billion light-years away by the pull of its dark matter.

Pi in the Sky

April Fools

April 1st Astronomy Hijinks

In breaking news today, astronomers have discovered Pi in the sky, proposed a revolutionary search for extraterrestrial environmentalism . . . and oh yes, April Fools’!

55 Cancri e, animated

Exoplanets

Hot Nights, Hotter Days on Exoplanet 55 Cancri e

A new thermal map of a super-Earth exoplanet is puzzling astronomers.

Resolving the Cosmic Infrared Background

Galaxies

Hidden Galaxies Revealed

Astronomers studying the infrared glow that pervades the universe have pinned down its source: dusty, faint, and faraway galaxies.

Milky Way Galaxy Halo

Milky Way

Galactic Archaelogy in the Milky Way Halo

The motions of thirteen stars in our galaxy’s halo outline a shell-like structure, perhaps the remains of an ancient galactic collision.

Most Distant Galaxy, GN-z11

Cosmology

Hubble Finds Most Distant Galaxy Yet

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have measured a precise distance to a galaxy dwelling in the cosmic dawn.

Milky Way

A Cold New View of the Milky Way Galaxy

A stunning submillimeter mosaic of the Milky Way Galaxy captures a portrait of the cold dust and gas swirling along the galactic plane.

55 Cancri e

Exoplanets

Hubble Sheds Light on Super Exoplanets

New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope are helping characterize the atmospheres of exotic planets such as 55 Cancri e.

WorldWide Telescope

People, Places, and Events

AAS Adopts Worldwide Telescope

The largest national association of astronomers is now the new home of a virtual observatory known as the WorldWide Telescope.

SDSS J1011+5442, the missing quasar

Black Holes

The Case of the Disappearing Quasar

When a quasar, a black hole-fueled beacons that shines from across the cosmos, went dark, astronomers set out to find out why.

ASASSN-15lh

Stellar Science

Brightest Supernova Baffles Astronomers

The most luminous supernova ever discovered, ASASSN-15lh, challenges a popular theory for blazingly bright exploding stars.

Milky Way

Charting 70,000 Stars in the Milky Way

Astronomers have created an age-map of 70,000 stars spanning our galaxy, ushering in a new era of galactic archaeology.

Microthruster, to scale

Space Missions

CubeSats: Future Solar System Explorers?

An innovative and tiny thruster design could prove the future of interplanetary exploration with the tiny satellites known as CubeSats.

Supernova Refsdal's fifth image

Stellar Science

Astronomers Predict a Supernova

For the first time, astronomers have predicted the appearance of a supernova.

Hubble Exoplanets

Exoplanets

Hubble Peers Inside Exoplanets' Atmospheres

Astronomers studying hot Jupiter exoplanets revealed when and how clouds form on these alien worlds.

Giant Exoplanet

Exoplanets

Kepler’s Giant Exoplanet Candidates — Real or Not?

A new study shows that about half of Kepler’s giant exoplanet candidates aren’t real planets. But astronomers expected this.

Supernova simulation

Stellar Science

Simulation Sees Supernova Innards

A new computer simulation provides a brief glimpse at what makes stellar bombs tick.

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