This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image zooms in on the feathery spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 45, which lies just 22 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale). The portrait uses data drawn from two complementary observing programs. The first took a broad view of 50 nearby galaxies, leveraging Hubble’s ability to […]
Category: Astrophysics
NASA’s Hubble Uncovers Rare White Dwarf Merger Remnant
An international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic rarity: an ultra-massive white dwarf star resulting from a white dwarf merging with another star, rather than through the evolution of a single star. This discovery, made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s sensitive ultraviolet observations, suggests these rare white dwarfs may be more common than previously […]
Webb Narrows Atmospheric Possibilities for Earth-sized Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d
The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d intrigues astronomers looking for possibly habitable worlds beyond our solar system because it is similar in size to Earth, rocky, and resides in an area around its star where liquid water on its surface is theoretically possible. But according to a new study using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, […]
As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate
A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the crisp vision of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is one of many missions across NASA’s fleet of space telescopes slated to observe this comet, together providing more information about its size and physical properties. While the comet poses […]
As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate
A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the crisp vision of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is one of many missions across NASA’s fleet of space telescopes slated to observe this comet, together providing more information about its size and physical properties. While the comet poses […]
NASA’s Webb Traces Details of Complex Planetary Nebula
Since their discovery in the late 1700s, astronomers have learned that planetary nebulae, or the expanding shell of glowing gas expelled by a low-intermediate mass star late in its life, can come in all shapes and sizes. Most planetary nebula present as circular, elliptical, or bi-polar, but some stray from the norm, as seen in […]
NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Spot Rare Type of Black Hole Eating a Star
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to identify a new possible example of a rare class of black holes. Called NGC 6099 HLX-1, this bright X-ray source seems to reside in a compact star cluster in a giant elliptical galaxy. Just a few years after its 1990 launch, Hubble […]
NASA Scientist Finds Predicted Companion Star to Betelgeuse
A century-old hypothesis that Betelgeuse, the 10th brightest star in our night sky, is orbited by a very close companion star was proved true by a team of astrophysicists led by a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in the paper “Probable Direct […]