Archive – Page 66 – Astronomy Now

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

Second Proxima Centauri planet confirmed in 25-year-old Hubble data

3 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Reviewing 25-year-old data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have confirmed the presence of a second planet orbiting Proxima Centauri

A galactic ballet

31 May 2020 Astronomy Now

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) captured this stunning view of a pair of interacting galaxies known as Arp 271.

SharpStar D 150mm f/2.8 HNT: An imaging telescope with sharp vision

27 May 2020 Ade Ashford

Until comparatively recently, your best tool for capturing wide-angle vistas of extended deep-sky objects with a full-frame DSLR or CCD/CMOS camera was a fast prime lens from one of the big-name players in photography. Now you can attain these swift imaging speeds with hyperbolic Newtonians, such as the SharpStar 15028HNT.

Heat blast is smoking gun for how the Galaxy’s most extreme stars form

22 May 2020 Keith Cooper

A powerful wave of thermal radiation caught rippling through an accretionary disc of gas surrounding a distant protostar could be the strongest evidence yet for how the most massive stars in the Universe form.

Here’s your chance to spot Mercury, as it cosies up to Venus this weekend

21 May 2020 Mark Armstrong

Look to the north-west this evening (21 May), soon after sunset, to enjoy a spectacular coming together of brilliant Venus and shy and elusive Mercury.