Studying giant galaxy clusters to find targets for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted what appears to be a third supernova going off in a galaxy where two others were previously seen.
Observations by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of two five-billion-solar-mass black holes at the cores of two ancient ‘red nugget’ galaxies show they squelched star formation early on while consuming surrounding gas.
Putting general relativity to the test, astronomers compared the known gravity of a galaxy with the bending of spacetime needed to produce a spectacular ‘Einstein ring’ and found, once again, that Einstein was correct.
The global dust storm now blanketing Mars that has at least temporarily sidelined the solar-powered Opportunity rover also is dimming the sky above Gale Crater where the Curiosity rover is hard at work
The European Space Agency has released a complete archive of high-resolution imagery from the Rosetta spacecraft charting the probe’s historic exploration of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, including a final unexpected frame.
A huge deposit of porous rock straddling the Martian equator likely formed as a result of explosive volcanoes erupting three billion years ago that were powered by climate-changing volatile gases trapped in the red planet’s interior
M66 is a familiar galaxy to amateur astronomers around the world, the largest member of a trio of interacting galaxies in the constellation Leo. This shot by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals M66 in all its glory, with its asymmetric spiral arms and a displaced core.
In the most clear-cut observation yet, ESA and NASA X-ray telescopes spot the telltale flare of an elusive intermediate-mass black hole devouring a passing star in the outskirts of a galaxy 740 million light years away
Changes in the light emerging from active galactic nuclei, powered by supermassive black holes, may be explained by clouds of intervening dust that can dim and redden the radiation, eliminating the need for more exotic explanations.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to send back spectacular images of Jupiter, including this look at the giant planet’s northern temperate zone where ammonia ice clouds roam in chaos amid high-speed winds and deeper, warmer cloud structures.