News – Page 69 – Astronomy Now

Parker Solar Probe launched on historic mission to ‘touch the sun’

12 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Opening a new era, NASA’s $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe is on its way to a close encounter with the sun, repeatedly flying through the star’s outer atmosphere to find out what heats up the corona and accelerates the solar wind

No place like home in crowded core of Omega Centauri

12 August 2018 Astronomy Now

An analysis of the crowded core of one of the most star-packed globular clusters in the Milky Way – Omega Centauri – indicates frequent gravitational interactions would prevent stable solar systems from forming and along with them, life.

Dwarf galaxy mergers provide fuel for star building in larger galaxies

12 August 2018 Astronomy Now

A new computer simulation sheds light on how the merger of dwarf galaxies results in widely dispersed gas that can be swept up by larger galaxies to provide fuel reserves for star formation.

$2 million earmarked to repair hurricane-damaged radio telescope

8 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Hurricane damage to the St. Croix dish in the continent-spanning Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope network will be repaired with $2 million in disaster-relief funding.

Most distant radio galaxy, host to a voracious black hole, is found

7 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have detected the most distant known radio galaxy, a surprising discovery given the supermassive black hole powering the galaxy was actively accreting gas and dust when the Universe was in its infancy.

Brown dwarf or massive exoplanet detected with powerful magnetic field

4 August 2018 Astronomy Now

The Very Large Array radio telescope has made the first detection of a planetary-mass body with a magnetic field 200 times more powerful than Jupiter’s. But it’s not yet clear whether it’s a brown dwarf or a massive exoplanet.

Astronomers stunned again by Eta Carinae – the star that will not die

3 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Eta Carinae, one of the brightest, most massive stars in the Milky Way, famously erupted 170 years ago, producing huge clouds of expanding debris. Astronomers studying light echoes from the blast may have found an explanation.

Successful occultation observations for New Horizons (updated 4 August)

2 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Mission planners preparing for the New Horizons flyby of a Kuiper Belt object on 1 January will attempt to monitor starlight as it is blocked out by the probe’s target, Ultima Thule, to update critical navigation data. Updated 4 August

Astronomers detect radioactive molecules in debris from stellar collision

1 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers studying the remnants of a collision between two stars have made the first direct detection of radioactive material outside Earth’s solar system, debris that was blasted into space from one star’s deep interior

NASA’s new planet hunter starts work

30 July 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s newest observatory in space has started its search for planets around other stars as astronomers zero in on worlds that are ripe for research by follow-up missions like the James Webb Space Telescope.