August 2018 – Page 3 – Astronomy Now

Hundreds of galaxies hidden in quasar’s 46-billion-sun glare

17 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers discover a huge cluster of galaxies ‘hidden in plain sight’ in the glare of a quasar and its voracious central black hole, raising the possibility the universe contains more mass than previously suspected

One Hubble picture is worth 15,000 words (make that galaxies)

17 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Famous for its “deep field” views of the cosmos, the Hubble Space Telescope has produced another stunning image combining ultraviolet, visible and infrared light, capturing 15,000 galaxies in various stages of evolutionary development in a single frame .

A family portrait of the Very Large Telescope facility in Chile

14 August 2018 Astronomy Now

A full-sky view of the four 8.2-metre (27-foot) telescopes making up the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile, complete with brilliant laser beam guide star to offset atmospheric turbulence

Excavation begins for Giant Magellan Telescope observatory

14 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Construction crews have begun excavating an estimated 5,000 cubic metres (13,300 tons) of rock – 330 dump truck loads – atop a mountain in the Atacama Desert in Chile to make way for the foundation supporting the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Protons may play outsized role in neutron star behaviour

13 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Protons make up only about 5 percent of the particles making up a ultra-compact neutron star, but a new analysis indicates they may play an outsize role in how the dense stars cool and even how they merge in cataclysmic collisions.

Parker Solar Probe launched on historic mission to ‘touch the sun’

12 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Opening a new era, NASA’s $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe is on its way to a close encounter with the sun, repeatedly flying through the star’s outer atmosphere to find out what heats up the corona and accelerates the solar wind

No place like home in crowded core of Omega Centauri

12 August 2018 Astronomy Now

An analysis of the crowded core of one of the most star-packed globular clusters in the Milky Way – Omega Centauri – indicates frequent gravitational interactions would prevent stable solar systems from forming and along with them, life.

Dwarf galaxy mergers provide fuel for star building in larger galaxies

12 August 2018 Astronomy Now

A new computer simulation sheds light on how the merger of dwarf galaxies results in widely dispersed gas that can be swept up by larger galaxies to provide fuel reserves for star formation.

$2 million earmarked to repair hurricane-damaged radio telescope

8 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Hurricane damage to the St. Croix dish in the continent-spanning Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope network will be repaired with $2 million in disaster-relief funding.

Glittering galaxies galore in wide-angle VST image in Virgo

8 August 2018 Astronomy Now

The European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope and its 256-megapixel OmegaCAM instrument captured this stunning view of galaxies shining in Virgo, part of a survey of elliptical “early type” galaxies.