News – Page 122 – Astronomy Now

25 August 2026

Live coverage: The launch of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission

8 September 2016 Justin Ray

Beginning a 4.4-billion-mile trek to retrieve a sample from Asteroid Bennu for return to Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft blasted off atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 12:05 a.m. BST (2305 GMT).

New research reveals hundreds of undiscovered black holes

8 September 2016 Astronomy Now

It is only as recently as 2013 that astrophysicists found individual black holes in globular clusters via rare phenomena in which a companion star donates material to the black hole. New research by the University of Surrey on a globular cluster known as NGC 6101 shows that it could host several hundred black holes — a phenomenon that until recently was thought impossible.

Rare fossil relic of early Milky Way discovered

7 September 2016 Astronomy Now

A fossilised remnant of the early Milky Way harbouring stars of hugely different ages has been revealed by an international team of astronomers. Terzan 5 resembles a globular cluster, but is unlike any other cluster known. It contains stars remarkably similar to the most ancient stars in the Milky Way and bridges the gap in understanding between our galaxy’s past and its present.

Brown dwarfs hiding in plain sight in our solar neighbourhood

7 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars as they are too small to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that powers stars. Their temperatures can range from nearly as hot as a star to as cool as a planet and their masses also range between star-like and giant-planet-like. A near-infrared survey has discovered several ultracool brown dwarfs in the Sun’s vicinity.

Earth’s carbon came from ancient collision with Mercury-like planet

6 September 2016 Astronomy Now

How did carbon-based life develop on Earth, given that most of the planet’s carbon should have either boiled away in the planet’s earliest days or become locked in Earth’s core? A new study suggests all of the planet’s life-giving carbon came from a collision with an embryonic planet similar to Mercury approximately 4.4 billion years ago.

Philae found! Rosetta’s lander wedged in cometary crevice

5 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Less than a month before the end of the mission, Rosetta’s high-resolution camera has revealed the Philae lander wedged into a dark crack on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The images were taken on 2 September by the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera as the orbiter came within 2.7 kilometres of the comet’s surface.

The supernova that wasn’t: a tale of three cosmic eruptions

4 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Combining images taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope over more than 20 years, a team of researchers has discovered that Eta Carinae, a very massive star system that has puzzled astronomers since it erupted in a supernova-like event in the mid-19th century, has a past that’s much more violent than they thought.

Juno’s first close ups of Jupiter’s poles

2 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Juno has beamed back amazing images of Jupiter’s poles taken during its recent close approach. It’s the first time we’ve seen one of the gas giant’s poles in detail since Pioneer 11 flew by in 1974.

First stars formed even later than previously thought

2 September 2016 Astronomy Now

ESA’s Planck satellite has revealed that the first stars in the universe started forming later than previous observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background indicated. This new analysis also shows that these stars were the only sources needed to account for reionising atoms in the cosmos, having completed half of this process when the universe had reached an age of 700 million years.

Dawn sets course for higher orbit at Ceres

1 September 2016 Astronomy Now

After studying Ceres for more than eight months from its low-altitude science orbit, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will move higher up for different views of the dwarf planet.