June 2020 – Page 2 – Astronomy Now

Study suggests alien civilisations similar to Earth’s are few and very far between

16 June 2020 Astronomy Now

A new study, using Earth as a model, suggests alien civilizations should exist, but they would be few and very far between, making detection and communication extremely difficult.

Curiosity Mars rover spots Earth and Venus in bright twilight sky

15 June 2020 Astronomy Now

The Curiosity Mars rover looks up from the martian surface to capture images of Earth and Venus in a bright twilight sky, showing humanity’s home as a tiny speck of light.

Hubble’s ‘before’ and more recent ‘after’ image of M100

15 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Before-and-after images of the spiral galaxy M100 were used in early 1994 to prove the Hubble Space Telescope’s flawed optics had been successfully repaired. More recent views with more powerful instruments show how Hubble has improved with age.

More evidence of trouble at the heart of the standard model

15 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have come up with another value for the Hubble constant, more evidence that the standard model of the cosmos and its expansion need revision

New Horizons shows nearby stars from an unearthly perspective

12 June 2020 Astronomy Now

NASA’s New Horizons probe captures images of nearby stars that show the unmistakable effects of parallax when compared with Earth-based views.

Facing another launch delay, work resumes on James Webb Space Telescope

10 June 2020 Astronomy Now

After weeks of downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic, engineers are pressing ahead with work to ready the James Webb Space Telescope for launch

Astronomers find possible near-Earth-like planet in archived Kepler data

9 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Researchers find evidence for an intriguing exoplanet in archived Kepler data, a “mirror-image” Earth-like world in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star.

Titan moving away from Saturn faster than expected

8 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Analysis of Cassini data shows Titan is moving away from Saturn faster than previously thought, shedding new light on solar system dynamics.

Hubble data suggest first stars formed even earlier than previously thought

5 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers find no signs of first-generation population III stars in gravitationally lensed galaxies dating back to within 500 million years of the Big Bang.

Caught in the act, a stellar mass black hole hurls jets into space at nearly light speed

4 June 2020 Astronomy Now

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory caught an eight-solar-mass black hole in the act of spewing jets of gas into space , material ripped away from a companion star and accelerated up to 80 percent the speed of light