Archive – Astronomy Now

Catch Mercury after sunset at its best for the year

12 May 2021 Mark Armstrong

Mercury is visible now in the early evening sky, offering sky-watchers in the UK and at other mid-northern latitudes their best chance of the year to spot the innermost planet.

A favourite of amateurs and professionals alike, M13 sits for Hubble portrait

11 May 2021 Astronomy Now

The globular cluster M13 in Hercules, a splendid sight in even modest telescopes, serves up a vast metropolis of stars when imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Voyager 1 sheds new light on interstellar medium

11 May 2021 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Voyager 1 probe, now 43 years outbound from Earth, is still at work, shedding new light on the interstellar medium.

Nova Cassiopeia 2021 suddenly brightens into naked-eye visibility

10 May 2021 Mark Armstrong

Nova Cas 2021, a ‘new star’ – a classical nova – discovered on 18 March 2021 in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia, has suddenly brightened in the past few days by around two magnitudes.

Helium ‘rain’ in Saturn’s interior may influence magnetic field

7 May 2021 Astronomy Now

Data collected by the Cassini spacecraft during its final few orbits of Saturn is shedding new light on the planet’s deep interior.

A shining stellar nursery amid vast bubbles of heated hydrogen

7 May 2021 Astronomy Now

Softly glowing emission nebulae like SH 2-305 serve as spectacular stellar nurseries where hydrogen gas serves as the raw material for starbirth on a grand scale.

Proposed Interstellar Probe gains momentum with Johns Hopkins study

28 April 2021 Astronomy Now

Engineers are testing prototype heat shields for a proposed interstellar probe that first would fly close by the Sun for a gravitational slingshot into deep space.

New ‘test-bed’ telescope joins hunt for threatening asteroids

27 April 2021 Astronomy Now

A European Space Agency “test-bed” telescope has been installed at ESO’s La Silla Observatory to hunt for threatening asteroids and test advanced technology.

Rare luminous blue variable provides stellar spectacle for Hubble anniversary

27 April 2021 Astronomy Now

To mark the Hubble Space Telescope’s 31st anniversary in space, astronomers captured a dramatic image of a rare luminous blue variable, one of the most massive and brightest stars in the Milky Way.

The light-bending dance of binary black holes captured in mesmerising animation

21 April 2021 Astronomy Now

Using a supercomputer, researchers modelled the light-bending spectacle of two supermassive black holes locked in a space-warping gravitational dance.