News – Page 45 – Astronomy Now

A hot planet, shaped like a football, spews heavy metals

5 August 2019 William Harwood

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected iron and magnesium gas spewing from a hellish exoplanet being gravitationally warped by its nearby host star.

Iron-poor star hints at nature of first-generation suns

2 August 2019 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found an exceptionally iron-poor star that may represent second-generation suns born in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang

LightSail team declares success in solar sail experiment

1 August 2019 Stephen Clark

The gentle push of sunlight is slowly changing the orbit of the Planetary Society’s crowd-funded LightSail 2 satellite after it unfurled a thin solar sail the size of a boxing ring last week, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Mars 2020 rover on track for launch next July

31 July 2019 Stephen Clark

The launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is less than a year away, and the steady pace of work inside the craft’s pristine assembly hall in California is keeping the mission on schedule for liftoff from Cape Canaveral next July, despite growing costs, according to mission managers.

TESS helps astronomers pinpoint possibly habitable exoplanet

31 July 2019 Astronomy Now

Following a lead provided by the TESS planet-hunting spacecraft, astronomers have found two more worlds lurking in a solar system 31 light years from Earth.

Going out with a bang, not a whimper, Eta Carinae continues to amaze

30 July 2019 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured another remarkable view of Eta Carinae, finding magnesium where it wasn’t expected and shedding new light on the “Great Eruption.”

Star orbiting supermassive black hole again confirms relativity

29 July 2019 Astronomy Now

In yet another validation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, precise measurements of a star’s light as it orbits the black hole at the center of the Milky Way show the predicted gravitational redshift.

TESS completes first year of operation; begins mapping northern sky

28 July 2019 Astronomy Now

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – TESS – mapped the southern sky during its first year of operation and is now imaging the northern sky in search of exoplanets and other phenomena.

India launches robotic mission to land on the Moon

22 July 2019 Stephen Clark

Seeking to become the fourth nation to successfully land on the moon, India launched an ambitious robotic lunar mission named Chandrayaan 2 on Monday, targeting a touchdown near the lunar south pole Sept. 6.

Asteroid with shortest year spotted

15 July 2019 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have spotted an unusual asteroid with the shortest “year” known for any asteroid. The rocky body, dubbed 2019 LF6, is about a kilometre in size and circles the Sun roughly every 151 days.