November 2018 – Page 2 – Astronomy Now

A glorious globular, M22 delights amateurs and professionals alike

23 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Messier 22 is a stunning sight in even small telescopes, but nothing rivals this spectacular view of the globular cluster’s crowded heart as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in visible and infrared light.

TRAPPIST-1 planets likely inhospitable, but one may have water

21 November 2018 Astronomy Now

New research indicates most, if not all, of the worlds orbiting the M dwarf TRAPPIST-1 lost whatever water they might have had early in the star’s history due to intense ultraviolet radiation.

NASA selects Jezero Crater for Mars 2020 landing site

19 November 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA says the Mars 2020 rover will land in Jezero Crater on or near a broad river delta and a now-vanished lake were signs of past microbial life my be awaiting discovery.

Colliding stellar winds hint at possible gamma ray burst to come

19 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Two massive, rapidly-rotating Wolf-Rayet stars are generating a titanic pinwheel of stellar wind-driven dust that hints at a cataclysmic gamma ray burst in the (astronomically) near future.

Most luminous known galaxy gobbles up its neighbours

18 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Data from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array, or ALMA, shows the most luminous known galaxy is powered in part by dust being sucked in from three nearby galaxies.

Scientists bid Kepler probe final goodnight and farewell

18 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Flight controllers sent a final set of commands to the exoplanet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, shutting the spacecraft down after it finally ran out of propellant, ending a spectacular mission.

Juno images Io rising over the immense limb of Jupiter

18 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Last week, we posted a dramatic view of Jupiter’s churning clouds as recently seen by NASA’s Juno orbiter. Here is another mesmerising JunoCam view of the solar system’s largest planet with the volcanically tortured moon Io rising above the horizon in the black of space.

See the Leonid meteor shower peak on 18 November

17 November 2018 Ade Ashford

The Leonid shower is well known for fast meteors, the brightest of which can leave persistent trains that appear to hang in the air for several seconds. This year’s maximum is predicted for 1am GMT on Sunday, 18 November. With a 9-day-old waxing gibbous Moon setting around the time of the shower’s peak in the UK, prospects are good.

Super-Earth found orbiting Barnard’s Star just six light years away

14 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers analysing 20 years of data precisely charting the position of Barnard’s Star some six light years away have discovered the second closest exoplanet to Earth.

Gravity waves marked birth of merged hypermassive neutron star

14 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Detailed analysis of gravitational wave data collected last year indicating the merger of two neutron stars shows the result was a single massive neutron star, not a black hole.