News – Page 188 – Astronomy Now

Monster black hole wakes up after 26 years

26 June 2015 Astronomy Now

On 15 June 2015, a long-time acquaintance of X-ray and gamma ray astronomers made its comeback to the cosmic stage: V404 Cygni, a system comprising a black hole and a star orbiting one another. It is located in our Milky Way galaxy, almost 8,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.

Global Asteroid Day events and webcasts set for June 30

25 June 2015 Astronomy Now

The first official Asteroid Day is on 30 June with premiere events in London and San Francisco, but local organisers are making final preparations for more than 50 public events worldwide to increase education and awareness about asteroids and how to better detect them.

Red dwarf seen stripping atmosphere from Neptune-sized exoplanet

25 June 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an immense cloud of hydrogen dispersing from a warm, Neptune-sized planet orbiting a nearby star. It may offer clues as to how hot super-Earths — massive, hot versions of Earth — are born around other stars.

Celestron boosts UK presence

24 June 2015 Astronomy Now

American telescope manufacturer Celestron has unveiled a new distribution centre to better serve astronomers in the UK.

New Horizons sees Pluto’s close approach hemisphere and Charon’s ‘dark pole’

24 June 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft doesn’t pass Pluto until July 14th — zipping by about 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometres) above the surface of the dwarf planet after a journey of almost 3 billion miles — but the mission team is making tantalising new discoveries as the piano-sized probe bears down on the Pluto system.

Nonphotosynthetic pigments could be biosignatures of life on other worlds

23 June 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers have found that if organisms with nonphotosynthetic pigments — those that process light for tasks other than energy production — cover enough of a distant exoplanet’s surface, their spectral signal could be strong enough to be detected by powerful future telescopes now being designed.

Saturn moon’s ice canyons viewed by Cassini

21 June 2015 Stephen Clark

Saturn’s moon Dione received a fleeting visitor on 16 June, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft whizzed by to image bizarre streaks thought to be canyons with ice walls up to 100 stories tall.

The mysterious ‘lakes’ on Saturn’s moon Titan

21 June 2015 Astronomy Now

Titan is home to seas and lakes filled with liquid hydrocarbons, but what forms the depressions on the surface? A new study using data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) Cassini mission suggests the moon’s surface dissolves in a process that’s similar to the creation of sinkholes on Earth.

Quasars result from violent galactic mergers

20 June 2015 Astronomy Now

Using the Hubble Space Telescope’s infrared vision, astronomers have unveiled some of the previously hidden origins of quasars, the brightest objects in the universe. A new study finds that quasars are born when galaxies crash into each other and fuel supermassive, central black holes.

For comet scientists, elation and redemption at Philae’s wakeup

19 June 2015 Stephen Clark

Research teams across Europe spent the last half-year meticulously going through a wish list of experiments for the Philae comet lander without knowing whether they would ever get a chance to execute the tasks.