2023 – Page 4 – Astronomy Now

NASA picks up faint carrier signal from Voyager 2

2 August 2023 Astronomy Now

NASA picks up faint carrier signal from Voyager 2, indicating the spacecraft is still functioning after antenna misalignment.

Webb observes menagerie of lensed galaxies behind ‘El Gordo’ cluster

2 August 2023 Astronomy Now

Webb peers into a massive galaxy cluster and finds a stunning menagerie of gravitationally lensed background galaxies from earlier epochs, again revealing the power of the telescope’s infrared vision.

JunoCam images and expert ‘citizen-scientist’ processing provides stunning portrait of Jupiter and three of its Galilean moons

1 August 2023 Astronomy Now

A family portrait of Jupiter and three of its Galilean moons shows off the skills of two “citizen scientists” using public domain imagery from NASA’s Juno orbiter.

Razor-sharp test images show Euclid’s instruments performing as expected

31 July 2023 Astronomy Now

The Euclid space telescope has reached its operational orbit and initial test images show the probe’s two instruments are operating in fine fashion as they’re fine tuned for science observations.

NASA loses touch with Voyager 2; waits for craft to ‘phone home’

31 July 2023 Astronomy Now

Flight controllers mistakenly commanded Voyager 2 to point slightly away from Earth, interrupting communications, but the spacecraft is expected to reset itself in October.

Cygnus’ famous stellar duo: 61 Cyg and SS Cyg

31 July 2023 Mark Armstrong

Amongst its embarrassment of deep-sky riches, mighty Cygnus, the Swan, hosts two famous stars, the dwarf nova variable star SS Cygni and the binary 61 Cygni.

Messier 14: An Ophiuchus globular

24 July 2023 Mark Armstrong

Messier 14 (NGC 6402) is one of Ophiuchus’ seven Messier-tagged globular clusters, which are incredibly dense balls of stars that can provide striking viewing.

Asymmetric magnetic fields may explain two-faced white dwarf

20 July 2023 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found what amounts to a two-faced white dwarf with one side dominated by hydrogen and the other by helium in what could be a transition from one phase to another.

ALMA spots exoplanet and possible sibling sharing same orbit

19 July 2023 Astronomy Now

Trojan planets – two worlds sharing the same orbit around their star – are possible in theory, but none have been found. Now, the ALMA radio telescope array may have done just that.

Hubble probes merging galaxy clusters combining to form powerful gravitational lenses

19 July 2023 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope searches for massive galactic clusters to learn more about gravitational lensing, the distortion and magnification of light from background, more distant bodies caused by a cluster’s enormous gravity.