It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s a super star cluster! NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope has imaged a star cluster that is “super” in every way. Westerlund 1 is super big, super massive, super young, super close – and it’s creating stars at a super fast pace. Westerlund 1 is about 13,000 light-years away from … Read more
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have for the first time ever mapped the plasma burps of a feeding black hole-powered quasar relatively close to Earth. Although supermassive black holes with masses millions or billions of times greater than the Sun are thought to live at the heart of all galaxies, not all of these … Read more
When it comes to hunting down the explosive deaths of massive stars in the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a true cosmic detective. This celestial Sherlock Holmes has found evidence of 80 new early supernovae in a patch of sky as wide as a grain of rice, held at arm’s length. … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has found evidence that two giant asteroids are colliding in a nearby galaxy. The colossal collision threw out 100,000 times more dust than the impact killed the dinosaurs. The violent impact recently occurred in Beta Pictoris, a galaxy 63 light-years away in the constellation Pictoris. Beta Pictoris is a … Read more
This is an artist’s impression of a young star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust. An international team of astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study the disk around a young, very low-mass star known as ISO-ChaI 147. The results reveal the richest hydrocarbon chemistry yet observed in a protoplanetary disk. … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. The Hubble Space Telescope will transition to a new way of operating that aims to prevent the space observatory from experiencing shortfalls in its ability to observe the universe, NASA officials said. The legendary telescope, … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. CNN — The Hubble Space Telescope will transition to a new way of operating that aims to prevent the space observatory from experiencing shortfalls in its ability to observe the universe, NASA officials said. The … Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the richest ‘menu’ of hydrocarbons ever seen in a planet-forming disk. This observation, which involved the protoplanetary disk around a small star, also revealed the first detection of ethane outside the Solar System. The discovery was made when the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument … Read more
Using a telescope on a mountain in Arizona, scientists have managed to capture snapshots of Jupiter’s active moon Io – and these images are so detailed they rival images of the world from space. To capture these images, the team used a camera called SHARK-VIS, recently installed on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mount … Read more
Problems with one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s three remaining gyroscopes, crucial for pointing and locking onto targets, have prompted mission managers to switch to a backup control mode that will limit some observations but keep the iconic observatory well into the years will keep it operational by 2030, officials said. Tuesday. “We still believe … Read more