Astronomy Now – Page 102

New tool for gravitational wave detection

28 January 2018 Astronomy Now

New “deep learning” algorithms are expected to improve the detection of gravitational wave signals and, with additional work, may help identify electromagnetic counterparts to gravity wave events

JunoCam images Jupiter’s north polar region

27 January 2018 Astronomy Now

The JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft has captured a stunning view of Jupiter’s north polar region, courtesy of citizen-scientist Björn Jónsson.

InSight spreads solar wings in critical test

27 January 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Mars Insight lander deployed its solar wings in a critical milestone on the road to launch from California in May. InSight will reach the red planet in late November, landing near the equator to study the interior of Mars.

Astrophysicist proposes new definition of a planet

22 January 2018 Astronomy Now

Pluto hogs the spotlight in the continuing scientific debate over what is and what is not a planet, but a less conspicuous argument rages on about the planetary status of massive objects outside our solar system. The dispute is not just about semantics, as it is closely related to how giant planets like Jupiter form.

Neutron star merger yields new puzzle for astrophysicists

19 January 2018 Astronomy Now

The afterglow from the distant neutron star merger detected last August has continued to brighten — much to the surprise of astrophysicists studying the aftermath of the massive collision that took place about 138 million light-years away and sent gravitational waves rippling through the Universe.

New SOFIA observations help unravel mysteries of the birth of colossal suns

19 January 2018 Astronomy Now

Scientists are using SOFIA to survey young stars more than ten-times the mass of the Sun in an ongoing study to understand how massive stars form in our galaxy.

NASA’s ‘Great Observatories’ team up to find magnified image of distant galaxy

17 January 2018 Astronomy Now

An intensive survey deep into the universe by NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has yielded the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack: the farthest galaxy yet seen in an image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

Ingredients for life revealed in meteorites that fell to Earth

16 January 2018 Astronomy Now

Two wayward space rocks, which separately crashed to Earth in 1998 after circulating in our solar system’s asteroid belt for billions of years, share something else in common: the ingredients for life. They are the first meteorites found to contain both liquid water and a mix of complex organic compounds such as hydrocarbons and amino acids.

Hubble finds substellar objects in the Orion Nebula

16 January 2018 Astronomy Now

In an unprecedented deep survey for small, faint objects in the Orion Nebula, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered the largest known population of brown dwarfs sprinkled among newborn stars.

Hubble’s barred and booming spiral galaxy

16 January 2018 Astronomy Now

This image, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, shows a galaxy named UGC 6093. As can be easily seen, UGC 6093 is something known as a barred spiral galaxy — it has beautiful arms that swirl outwards from a bar slicing through the galaxy’s center.