News – Page 102 – Astronomy Now

Andromeda’s bright X-ray mystery solved by NuSTAR

24 March 2017 Astronomy Now

The Milky Way’s closest neighbor, Andromeda, features a dominant source of high-energy X-ray emission, but its identity was mysterious until now. As reported in a new study, NASA’s NuSTAR mission has pinpointed an object responsible for this high-energy radiation.

Two weeks left to enter Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017

23 March 2017 Astronomy Now

With just over two weeks left to enter the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017 competition, the Royal Observatory Greenwich has released a sneak peek at some of this year’s entrants.

Rosetta’s comet shows scars from swing through inner solar system

23 March 2017 Stephen Clark

Scientists examining imagery from Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft have logged numerous changes to the face of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, from collapsing cliffs to a growing crack through the comet’s neck that could foretell the eventual unraveling of the city-sized icy world.

NASA’s Swift mission maps a star’s ‘death spiral’ into a black hole

21 March 2017 Stephen Clark

Some 290 million years ago, a star much like the sun wandered too close to the central black hole of its galaxy. Intense tides tore the star apart, which produced an eruption of optical, ultraviolet and X-ray light that first reached Earth in 2014.

Gigantic Jupiter-type planet reveals insights into how planets evolve

20 March 2017 Stephen Clark

An enormous young planet approximately 300 light-years from Earth has given astrophysicists a rare glimpse into planetary evolution.

Europe’s ExoMars spacecraft begins lowering its orbit

20 March 2017 Stephen Clark

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a Russian-launched, European-built spacecraft that arrived at Mars in October, is starting to dip into the upper reaches of the red planet’s atmosphere in a year-long “aerobraking” campaign place the observatory in the right position to hunt for methane, an indicator of potential biological activity.

Star discovered in closest known orbit around likely black hole

14 March 2017 Stephen Clark

Astronomers have found evidence for a star that whips around a black hole about twice an hour. This may be the tightest orbital dance ever witnessed for a likely black hole and a companion star.

Perils and discoveries lie ahead for long-lived Saturn orbiter

14 March 2017 Stephen Clark

Scientists are bracing for a blitz of discoveries in the last six months of Cassini’s mission at Saturn, when the plutonium-powered robot will repeatedly ram through an unexplored gap in the planet’s famous rings, then make a destructive plunge into the atmosphere in September.

Saturn’s peculiar moon Pan pictured

11 March 2017 Astronomy Now

The Cassini probe has revealed Saturn’s inner-most moon Pan in all its peculiar glory. The spacecraft took the highest resolution images yet of the extraordinary, ravioli-shaped moon on 7 March 2017 from a distance of 24,572 kilometres (15,268 miles).

Hubble dates black hole’s last big meal

9 March 2017 Stephen Clark

For the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, it’s been a long time between dinners. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found that the black hole ate its last big meal about 6 million years ago, when it consumed a large clump of infalling gas.