W. M. Keck Observatory – Astronomy Now

Jupiter’s high temperature traced to planet’s powerful auroras

4 August 2021 Astronomy Now

A 50-year-old mystery solved: a detailed analysis shows Jupiter’s intense auroras heat the atmosphere on a global scale.

Astronomers spot two stars locked in supernova death spiral

13 July 2021 Astronomy Now

Astronomers spot a teardrop-shaped star indicating the distorting presence of a white dwarf as the two spiral toward a supernova blast.

Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov sports 160,000-kilometre-long tail

27 November 2019 Astronomy Now

As interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov nears its closest point to the Sun on 8 December, a long tail of icy debris has formed stretching some 160,000 kilometres.

Persistence – and adaptive optics – track Io volcanoes

16 August 2019 Astronomy Now

Using adaptive optics, researchers have been monitoring Jupiter’s tortured moon Io for the past five years, gaining new insights into its persistent volcanism.

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.

Researchers find a “fossil” cloud made up of the original star stuff

25 December 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found only the third example of a fossil cloud made up of material generated in the Big Bang that’s not “polluted” by heavier elements cooked up in supernova blasts.

Mystery objects whizzing about in Milky Way’s core

8 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Spectrographic data indicates several unusual compact dusty objects are circling the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way, the possible result of stellar mergers triggered by the hole’s titanic gravity.

Scientists get best measure of star-forming material in early galaxy clusters

21 July 2017 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have combined observations from several of the world’s most powerful telescopes to carry out one of the largest studies yet of molecular gas — the raw material which fuels star formation throughout the universe — in three of the most distant clusters of galaxies ever found, detected as they appeared when the Universe was only four billion years old.

Large number of dwarf galaxies discovered in the early universe

25 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Researchers have found a large population of distant dwarf galaxies that could reveal important details about a productive period of star formation in the universe billions of years ago. It is believed that dwarf galaxies played a significant role during the so-called reionisation era in transforming the dark early universe into one that is bright, ionised and transparent.

Relationship revealed between chemicals found on comets

2 November 2016 Astronomy Now

A new study reveals similarities and relationships between certain types of chemicals found on 30 different comets, which vary widely in their overall composition compared to one another. The research is part of ongoing investigations into these primordial bodies, which contain material largely unchanged from the solar system’s birth some 4.6 billion years ago.