News – Astronomy Now

24 January 2020

Astronomers find more bizarre objects orbiting Milky Way’s black hole

16 January 2020 Astronomy Now

Strange objects orbiting the Milky Way’s central black hole appear to be binary stars that were forced to merge under the influence of the hole’s gravity.

Hubble finds evidence for widely held ‘cold dark matter’ theory

12 January 2020 Astronomy Now

Using the Hubble Space Telescope an eight gravitationally lensed quasars, researchers have found strong evidence for cold dark matter.

Lucy mission gets another asteroid target – a tiny moon

10 January 2020 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Lucy probe will visit a record seven asteroids during its 12-year mission, including one recently found to feature a small moon.

Trail-blazing astronomer Vera Rubin honoured

8 January 2020 Astronomy Now

The observatory that will operate the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope has been renamed in honour of the late astronomer Vera Rubin.

TESS finds its first Earth-size planet in host sun’s habitable zone

7 January 2020 Astronomy Now

NASA exoplanet-hunting TESS satellite has found its first habitable-zone Earth-size planet and another orbiting an eclipsing binary system.

SOFIA captures Milky Way’s core in stunning infrared glory

6 January 2020 Astronomy Now

An extremely sharp infrared view of the Milky Way’s central regions may shed light on how massive stars form and what feeds the galaxy’s central black hole.

‘Godzilla’ galaxy, one of largest observed, hosts a trillion suns

6 January 2020 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope is helping astronomers study one of the largest spiral galaxies yet found, a “Godzilla” galaxy hosting a trillion stars.

Laboratory experiments suggest Venus may still be volcanically active

5 January 2020 Astronomy Now

It’s no secret that hellish Venus has been resurfaced by extensive lava flows, but new research indicates it may be volcanically active to this today.

Nearby pulsar a likely source of high-energy antimatter cosmic rays

31 December 2019 Astronomy Now

A decade of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope shows a nearby pulsar is the likely source of an excess of antimatter cosmic rays.

Supermassive black holes feast on vast reservoirs of hydrogen

30 December 2019 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found a likely source of “food” – vast reservoirs of hydrogen – fueling the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe