https://phys.org/space-news/astronomy en-us The latest science news on astronomy, space, and astrophysics. Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe was born in a blur of mystery. The new Simons Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert may soon answer the great scientific question of what happened in that tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-team-probe-big-inflation.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:25:41 EDT news638119511 ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra spacecraft have detected three young neutron stars that are unusually cold for their age. By comparing their properties to different neutron star models, scientists conclude that the oddballs' low temperatures disqualify around 75% of known models. This is a big step towards uncovering the one neutron star "equation of state" that rules them all, with important implications for the fundamental laws of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-young-cool-lessons-neutron-stars.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:52:03 EDT news638106721 For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to image directly has been captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). In this stunning image of the Serpens Nebula, the discovery lies in the northern area of this young, nearby star-forming region. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-webb-image-alignment-bipolar-jets.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:17:29 EDT news638104643 Studying the history of science shows how often serendipity plays a role in some of the most important discoveries. Sometimes, the stories are apocryphal, like Newton getting hit on the head with an apple. But sometimes, there's an element of truth to them. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-earliest-merging-quasars.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 11:25:03 EDT news638101502 Supermassive black holes pose unanswered questions for astronomers around the world, not the least of which is "How do they grow so big?" Now, an international team of astronomers, including researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, has discovered a powerful rotating, magnetic wind that they believe is helping a galaxy's central supermassive black hole to grow. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-supermassive-black-hole-baby-star.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 10:48:02 EDT news638099278 Photographing faint objects close to bright stars is incredibly difficult. Yet, by combining data from ESA's Gaia space telescope with ESO's GRAVITY instrument on the ground, scientists managed just that. They took the first pictures of so far unseen dim companions of eight luminous stars. The technique unlocks the tantalizing possibility to capture images of planets orbiting close to their host stars. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-scientists-hidden-companions-bright-stars.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 10:15:04 EDT news638097302 Using the Magellan Telescopes in Chile, astronomers have performed photometric observations of a giant elliptical galaxy known as NGC 4696. The observations reveal that the galaxy has a complex globular cluster system. The finding was detailed in a paper published June 12 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-galaxy-ngc-hosts-complex-globular.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 09:30:55 EDT news638094651 A French-Chinese telescope satellite will blast off this weekend on a mission to hunt down gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-french-chinese-probe-universe-biggest.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:04:16 EDT news638089445 Earth's protective atmosphere has sheltered life for billions of years, creating a haven where evolution produced complex lifeforms like us. The ozone layer plays a critical role in shielding the biosphere from deadly UV radiation. It blocks 99% of the sun's powerful UV output. Earth's magnetosphere also shelters us. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-earth-atmosphere-defense-nearby-supernovae.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:29:53 EDT news638018990 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken its first new images since changing to an alternate operating mode that uses one gyro. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-nasa-hubble-image-mode.html Astronomy Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:10:07 EDT news638017801 A new study published in Physical Review Letters explores the possibility that a strongly supercooled, first-order phase transition in the early universe could explain gravitational wave signals observed by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs). https://phys.org/news/2024-06-supercooled-phase-transitions-gravitational.html Astronomy Wed, 19 Jun 2024 09:30:02 EDT news638006608 Astronomers from India and Thailand have observed a young nearby open cluster known as Berkeley 59. Results of the observational campaign, published June 12 on the pre-print server arXiv, deliver essential information regarding low-mass stellar and substellar content of this cluster. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-explore-stellar-content-nearby-young.html Astronomy Wed, 19 Jun 2024 08:47:16 EDT news638005631 When stars collapse, they can leave behind incredibly dense but relatively small and cold remnants called neutron stars. If two stars collapse in close proximity, the leftover binary neutron stars spiral in and eventually collide, and the interface where the two stars begin merging becomes incredibly hot. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-simulations-reveal-hot-neutrinos-neutron.html Astronomy Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:45:57 EDT news637933554 Imagine keeping a laser beam trained on a dime that's 200 miles away. Now imagine doing that continuously for 24 hours, while riding a merry-go-round. Does it seem difficult? Well, that's basically what the Hubble Space Telescope does. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-hubble-telescope-shifted-gyro-mode.html Astronomy Tue, 18 Jun 2024 11:28:04 EDT news637928882 Astronomers have performed a comprehensive chemical study of a Galactic globular cluster known as Terzan 6. Results of the study, presented in a research paper published June 11 on the pre-print server arXiv, could advance our knowledge about the properties and nature of this cluster. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-chemical-composition-globular-cluster-terzan.html Astronomy Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:27:22 EDT news637921637 In late 2019, the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 suddenly started shining brighter than ever before. To understand why, astronomers have used data from several space and ground-based observatories, including the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), to track how the galaxy's brightness has varied. In a study out today, they conclude that they are witnessing changes never seen before in a galaxy—likely the result of the sudden awakening of the massive black hole at its core. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-astronomers-massive-black-hole-awaken.html Astronomy Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:00:01 EDT news637858101 Astronomers believe that at the heart of most, if not all, galaxies sits a titanic black hole with a mass that is millions or even billions of times that of our sun. These supermassive black holes cannot be directly created through the collapse of a massive star, as is the case with stellar mass black holes with masses tens of times that of the sun, as no star is large enough to birth such a huge object. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-astronomers-black-holes-mergers-ancestors.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 14:01:45 EDT news637851703 A recent study has investigated teleparallel gravity and its potential to resolve tension surrounding the expansion of the universe in a way that general relativity can't. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-einstein-theory-gravity-recipe-relieve.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 14:01:40 EDT news637851698 Observing gravitational waves from neutron stars as they glitch could help us understand these exotic stellar remnants. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-glitches-rapidly-neutron-star-pulsars.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 14:01:15 EDT news637851673 This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular cluster NGC 2005. It's not an unusual globular cluster in and of itself, but it is a peculiarity when compared to its surroundings. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-image-hubble-captures-cosmic-fossil.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 12:23:15 EDT news637845791 A team of scientists used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to parse the composition of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. With the telescope's MIRI (Mid-Infared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), the team gathered data that are helping to clarify the Crab Nebula's history. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-scientists-crab-nebula-james-webb.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 12:19:32 EDT news637845567 In a discovery that challenges the conventional understanding of cosmology, scientists at Case Western Reserve University have unearthed new evidence that could reshape our perception of the cosmos. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-mond-dark-rotation-galaxies-stay.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 10:14:45 EDT news637838082 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) have discovered a new supernova. Designated SN 2023adsy, the newfound stellar explosion is the most distant Type Ia supernova so far detected. The finding was detailed in a research paper published June 7 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-ia-supernova.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Jun 2024 08:54:15 EDT news637833250 Observational astronomy shows that newly discovered young stellar objects (YSOs) in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* located in the center of our galaxy behave differently than expected. They describe similar orbits to already known young evolved stars and are arranged in a particular pattern around the supermassive black hole. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-high-baby-stars-circle-supermassive.html Astronomy Fri, 14 Jun 2024 11:01:04 EDT news637581661 "Classical Cepheids" are a type of pulsating star that rhythmically brighten and dim over time. These pulsations help astronomers measure vast distances across space, which makes Cepheids crucial "standard candles" that help us understand the size and scale of our universe. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-high-precision-cepheids.html Astronomy Fri, 14 Jun 2024 03:00:01 EDT news637507501 The Giant Magellan Telescope and IDOM has announced that the telescope's enclosure, set to be one of the world's largest astronomical facilities, passed its final design review and is now ready for construction in Chile. The review marks a major milestone for the telescope, which is now 40% under construction and on track to be operational by the early 2030s. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-giant-magellan-telescope-enclosure-ready.html Astronomy Thu, 13 Jun 2024 11:00:01 EDT news637490101 Space may appear vast and empty, but it's full of cosmological objects that are invisible to the human eye. From our vantage point on Earth, many of these objects fall between astronomers and what they hope to observe, impacting what they find. This scenario was recently encountered by scientists at the U.S. National Science Foundation's Green Bank Observatory (GBO), who were attempting to study the Smith Cloud, tucked away behind dense layers of gas and dust in our own Milky Way galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-aiming-massive-gas-cloud-astronomers.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Jun 2024 17:02:03 EDT news637430521 It's still just a plan, but a new telescope could soon be measuring gravitational waves. Gravitational waves are something like the sound waves of the universe. They are created, for example, when black holes or neutron stars collide. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-einstein-telescope-era-astronomy.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Jun 2024 16:39:06 EDT news637429141 Most of the universe is invisible to the human eye. The building blocks of stars are only revealed in wavelengths that are outside of the visible spectrum. Astronomers recently used two very different, and very powerful, telescopes to discover twin disks—and twin parallel jets—erupting from young stars in a multiple star system. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-astronomers-parallel-disks-jets-erupting.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Jun 2024 14:05:25 EDT news637419922 Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory contributed to a project that sets the stage for two telescopes investigating one of astrophysics' biggest mysteries. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-nasa-roman-mission-cosmic-peek.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Jun 2024 12:51:05 EDT news637415462