Space Telescopes News

April 18, 2024

Top Headlines

Astronomers Uncover Methane Emission on a Cold Brown Dwarf

Apr. 17, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered methane emission on a brown dwarf, an unexpected finding for such a cold and isolated world. The findings suggest that this brown dwarf might generate aurorae similar to those seen on our own planet as well as on Jupiter ...

No Gamma Rays Seen Coming from Nearby Supernova

Apr. 16, 2024 — A nearby supernova in 2023 offered astrophysicists an excellent opportunity to test ideas about how these types of explosions boost particles, called cosmic rays, to near light-speed. But surprisingly, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected ...

Most Massive Stellar Black Hole in Our Galaxy Found

Apr. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have identified the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. This black hole was spotted in data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission because it imposes an odd 'wobbling' motion on the companion ...

Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst of All Time Came from the Collapse of a Massive Star

Apr. 12, 2024 — In 2022, astronomers discovered the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) of all time. Now, astronomers confirm that a 'normal' supernova, the telltale sign of a stellar collapse, accompanied the GRB. The ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:49pm EDT

Physicists Solve Puzzle About Ancient Galaxy Found by Webb Telescope

Apr. 15, 2024 — Physicists solve a puzzle linked to JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current ...

Stellar Winds of Three Sun-Like Stars Detected for the First Time

Apr. 12, 2024 — An international research team has for the first time directly detected stellar winds from three Sun-like stars by recording the X-ray emission from their astrospheres, and placed constraints on the ...

Exoplanets True to Size

Apr. 12, 2024 — A star's magnetic field must be considered in order to correctly determine the characteristics of exoplanets from observations by space telescopes such as Kepler, James Webb, or PLATO. Researchers ...

Beautiful Nebula, Violent History: Clash of Stars Solves Stellar Mystery

Apr. 11, 2024 — When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148937, one star ...

Twinkle Twinkle Baby Star, 'Sneezes' Tell Us How You Are

Apr. 11, 2024 — Researchers have found that baby stars discharge plumes of gas, dust, and magnetic flux from their protostellar disk. The protostellar disk that surrounds developing stars are constantly penetrated ...

Telescope Detects Unprecedented Behavior from Nearby Magnetar

Apr. 8, 2024 — Captured by cutting-edge radio telescope technology, a chance reactivation of a magnetar -- the Universe's most powerful magnets -- has revealed an unexpectedly complex ...

Inexplicable Flying Fox Found in Hydra Galaxy Cluster

Apr. 8, 2024 — High sensitivity radio observations have discovered a cloud of magnetized plasma in the Hydra galaxy cluster. The odd location and shape of this plasma defy all conventional explanations. Dubbed the ...

First Results from DESI Make the Most Precise Measurement of Our Expanding Universe

Apr. 4, 2024 — Researchers have used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to make the largest 3D map of our universe and world-leading measurements of dark ...

CHEOPS Detects a 'Rainbow' on an Exoplanet

Apr. 5, 2024 — The CHEOPS space telescope is providing new information on the mysterious exoplanet WASP-76b. This ultra-hot giant is characterized by an asymmetry between the amount of light observed on its eastern ...

NASA's Webb Probes an Extreme Starburst Galaxy

Apr. 3, 2024 — A team of astronomers has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this galaxy is ...

ALMA Finds New Molecular Signposts in Starburst Galaxy

Mar. 28, 2024 — The ALMA radio telescope has detected more than 100 molecular species, including many indicative of different star formation and evolution processes, in a galaxy where stars are forming much more ...

Astronomers Conduct First Search for Forming Planets With New Space Telescope

Mar. 27, 2024 — Planets form in disks of dust and gas called protoplanetary disks that whirl around a central protostar during its final ...

Persistent Hiccups in a Far-Off Galaxy Draw Astronomers to New Black Hole Behavior

Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have found that a previously quiet black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy about 800 million light years away, has suddenly erupted, giving off plumes of gas every 8.5 days ...

Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way's Central Black Hole

Mar. 27, 2024 — A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). ...

Turbulence Within Solar Transients Imaged

Mar. 27, 2024 — Scientists captured images showing the development of turbulence as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) interacted with the ambient solar wind in the circumsolar ...

'Cosmic Cannibals' Expel Jets Into Space at 40 Percent the Speed of Light

Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have measured the speed of fast-moving jets in space, crucial to star formation and the distribution of elements needed for life. The jets of matter, expelled by stars deemed 'cosmic ...

Tiniest 'Starquake' Ever Detected

Mar. 26, 2024 — An orange dwarf star has yielded the tiniest 'starquakes' ever recorded, measured by an international team of ...

Astronomers Discover 49 New Galaxies in Under Three Hours

Mar. 25, 2024 — New work aimed to study the star-forming gas in a single radio galaxy. Although the team didn't find any star-forming gas in the galaxy they were studying, they instead discovered other galaxies ...

James Webb Space Telescope Captures the End of Planet Formation

Mar. 22, 2024 — How much time do planets have to form from a swirling disk of gas and dust around a star? A new study gives scientists a better idea of how our own solar system came to ...

High School Students Contribute to Exoplanet Discovery

Mar. 20, 2024 — A group of high school students from Oakland, California, made contributions to the field of exoplanet research. Researchers worked with the students to use backpack-sized digital smart telescopes. ...

Scientists Find One of the Most Ancient Stars That Formed in Another Galaxy

Mar. 20, 2024 — The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new ...

Largest-Ever Map of Universe's Active Supermassive Black Holes Released

Mar. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have charted the largest-ever volume of the universe with a new map of active supermassive black holes living at the centers of galaxies. Called quasars, the gas-gobbling black holes are, ...

Cheers! NASA's Webb Finds Ethanol, Other Icy Ingredients for Worlds

Mar. 13, 2024 — What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two young protostars known as IRAS ...

Explaining a Supernova's 'String of Pearls'

Mar. 13, 2024 — Physicists often turn to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability to explain why fluid structures form in plasmas, but that may not be the full story when it comes to the ring of hydrogen clumps around ...

Peering Into the Tendrils of NGC 604 With NASA's Webb

Mar. 11, 2024 — The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now ...

Nasa’s Webb, Hubble Telescopes Affirm Universe’s Expansion Rate, Puzzle Persists

Mar. 11, 2024 — When you are trying to solve one of the biggest conundrums in cosmology, you should triple check your homework. The puzzle, called the 'Hubble Tension,' is that the current rate of the ...

Baby Quasars: Growing Supermassive Black Holes

Mar. 7, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope makes one of the most unexpected findings within its first year of service: A high number of faint little red dots in the distant Universe could change the way we ...

Finding New Physics in Debris from Colliding Neutron Stars

Mar. 6, 2024 — Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to ...

Groundbreaking Survey Reveals Secrets of Planet Birth Around Dozens of Stars

Mar. 5, 2024 — A team of astronomers has shed new light on the fascinating and complex process of planet formation. The research brings together observations of more than 80 young stars that might have planets ...

JWST Captures the End of Planet Formation

Mar. 4, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists uncover how planets form by advancing understanding of their birthplaces and the circumstellar disks surrounding young stars. Scientists have ...