Astronomy Now – Page 99

Comet provides rare chance to study Solar System’s origins

4 April 2018 Astronomy Now

More samples of comets are urgently required to better understand the early history of the Solar System, say researchers analyzing comet dust brought back to Earth by NASA’s Stardust mission in 2006.

Taking a shine to Enceladus

3 April 2018 Astronomy Now

Saturn’s rings cast shadows on the planet’s cloud tops, providing a perfect backdrop for the brilliant sphere of the moon Enceladus in this image taken by NASA’s Cassini probe.

Martian moons appear in motion

1 April 2018 Astronomy Now

The Martian moons Phobos and Deimos appear to be in motion in this animation created from 19 images taken by NASA’s orbiting Mars Odyssey probe.

Kepler Space Telescope sheds light on fast-evolving supernovae

26 March 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has captured a difficult-to-detect, fast-evolving supernova in the act of blowing up and rapidly fading away, allowing astronomers to rule out competing theories and come up with a plausible explanation.

Glowing stellar nurseries in a web of cosmic filaments

26 March 2018 Astronomy Now

A vast star-forming region as seen by the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory shows a tangled web of filaments with embedded hot spots where stars are being born. Observations of such filaments indicate a common process is at work to generate such filaments — and stars — from the interstellar medium.

A big storm, by definition, on mighty Jupiter

24 March 2018 Astronomy Now

Citizen scientists process a stunning image of a giant storm in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its 11th close flyby of the giant planet. Bright cloud tops look similar to storm clouds on Earth, although the scale is vastly larger. Juno is giving planetary scientists a unique view of Jupiter from the spacecraft’s polar orbit.

Interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua likely originated in binary star system

19 March 2018 Astronomy Now

The interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua likely originated in a binary star system, researchers say. The rocky, cigar-shaped asteroid was discovered last October as it made a high-speed pass through Earth’s solar system.

Radio echoes of a black hole feasting on a doomed star

19 March 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers studying emissions from a black hole have found a relationship between the strength of X-rays generated as material on the way into the hole is heated and the strength of jets blasting energetic particles back into space.

The Crab Nebula in all its spectacular multi-wavelength glory

14 March 2018 Astronomy Now

A newly processed view of the Crab Nebula, combining X-ray emissions, ultraviolet, optical, infrared and radio emissions using five different telescopes, reveals an astonishing level of detail in the evolving supernova blast, a complex tapestry of debris powered by a fast-spinning pulsar, the collapsed remnant of the destroyed star.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot extending upward as it shrinks

14 March 2018 Astronomy Now

A new study indicates Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is drifting westward faster than before and extending upward, but analysis of historical data confirms it is shrinking overall and now is just slightly larger than Earth.