This artist’s concept illustrates an asteroid belt around the bright star Vega. Evidence for this warm ring of debris was found using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, and the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory, in which NASA plays an important role. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a large asteroid belt around the star Vega, the … Read the rest of this article
Newly released Hubble Space Telescope images of a vast debris disk encircling the nearby star Fomalhaut, and of a mysterious planet circling it, may provide forensic evidence of a titanic planetary disruption in the system.
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This false-color composite image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the orbital motion of the planet Fomalhaut b. Based on these observations, astronomers calculated …
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This artist’s conception illustrates the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026. NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes observed the object to learn more about its turbulent atmosphere. Brown dwarfs are more massive and hotter than planets but lack the mass required to become sizzling stars. Their atmospheres can be similar to the giant planet Jupiter’s. Spitzer and Hubble simultaneously observed the object …
Researchers using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) have captured new images of a ring of gas and dust seven light-years in diameter surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and of a neighboring cluster of extremely luminous young stars embedded in dust cocoons.
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SOFIA/FORCAST mid-infrared image of the Milky Way galaxy’s nucleus showing …
It’s not exactly icing on a cake, but it could be icing on a lake. A new paper by scientists on NASA’s Cassini mission finds that blocks of hydrocarbon ice might decorate the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturn’s moon Titan. The presence of ice floes might explain some of the mixed readings Cassini has … Read the rest of this article
This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shows the patch of rock cleaned by the first use of the rover’s Dust Removal Tool (DRT). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has completed first-time use of a brush it carries to sweep dust off rocks.
Nearing the end of a series of first-time … Read the rest of this article
Unlike with some blockbuster films, the sequel to a movie from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is better than the first. This latest movie features a deeper look at a fast moving jet of particles produced by a rapidly rotating neutron star, and may provide new insight into the nature of some of the densest matter in the universe.
The hero … Read the rest of this article
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This new view of spiral galaxy IC 342, also known as Caldwell 5, includes data from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. High-energy X-ray data from NuSTAR have been translated to the color magenta, and superimposed on a visible-light view highlighting the galaxy and its star-studded arms. NuSTAR is the first orbiting telescope to take focused pictures of the …
This collage includes a compilation of artist’s concepts depicting milestones from the Kepler mission. Image credit: NASA Ames Research Center/W. Stenzel
NASA’s Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun’s “habitable zone,” the region in the planetary system … Read the rest of this article
AAVSO Alert Notice 476Dr. Bob Zavala (U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff) has requested AAVSO assistance in obtaining multicolor photometry of the bright triple system b Per in order to prepare for and detect a possible eclipse of the AB components by the C component predicted for 2013 January 23. … Read the rest of this article
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