Archive – Page 66 – Astronomy Now

Now you see it, now you don’t; a massive star disappears

2 July 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers ponder the fate of a massive star in a remote dwarf galaxy that disappeared without a trace.

Launch of NASA’s next Mars rover delayed to 30 July

1 July 2020 Astronomy Now

Launch of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has been delayed to 30 July at the earliest after a series of processing snags.

Most massive black hole yet discovered redefines ‘gargantuan’

1 July 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers find a supermassive black hole 8,000 times more massive than the one at the heart of the Milky Way.

Giant star spots, not dust, likely culprit in dimming of Betelgeuse

29 June 2020 Astronomy Now

The pronounced dimming of the red giant Betelgeuse likely was caused by huge star spots, not by intervening dust, researchers say.

A vast stellar nursery, a familiar target for amateurs, reveals its brilliant majesty

29 June 2020 Astronomy Now

A favourite target for amateur astronomers, M17, also known as the Omega, or Swan, Nebula, comes to life in a dramatic ESO image capturing the full extent of the enormous star-forming region.

Monster black hole in early universe challenges theorists

25 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found a 1.5-billion-solar-mass black hole dating back to within 700 million years of the Big Bang birth of the cosmos.

Gravity waves herald merger of black hole and enigmatic companion

24 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Gravity waves indicate the merger of a massive black hole and a much less massive companion that may represent a new class of objects.

Researchers build “supernova in a box” to study the physics of stellar blasts

23 June 2020 Astronomy Now

Researchers build a “supernova machine” to mimic in miniature the explosive turbulent mixing that occurs when stars explode.

Scientists ponder inconclusive data from dark matter experiment

21 June 2020 Astronomy Now

It’s not yet clear what, if anything, the XENON dark matter experiment may have detected during its recent run, but scientists are hopeful something new is in the offing.

Hubble camera captures stunning new views of stars gone ‘haywire’

20 June 2020 Astronomy Now

New Hubble Space Telescope images of well-studied planetary nebulae reveal fast-changing structures and shed new light on how some stars go “haywire” near the ends of their lives, throwing off spectacular clouds and jets as they run out of nuclear fuel.