Category Astronomy/Space

Unlike most stellar explosions that fade away, supernova SN 2012au continues to shine today thanks to a powerful new pulsar.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. DePasquale (STScI)

The explosions of stars, known as supernovae, can be so bright they outshine their host galaxies. They take months or years to fade away, and sometimes, the gaseous remains of the explosion slam into hydrogen-rich gas and temporarily get bright again – but could they remain luminous without any outside interference?

That’s what Dan Milisavljevic, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Purdue University, believes he saw six years after “SN 2012au” exploded...

FORS2, an instrument mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured the spiral galaxy NGC 3981 in all its glory. The image, captured during the ESO Cosmic Gems Programme, showcases the beauty of the southern skies when conditions don’t allow scientific observations to be made.
Credit: ESO

FORS2, an instrument mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has observed the spiral galaxy NGC 3981 in all its glory. The image was captured as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems Programme, which makes use of the rare occasions when observing conditions are not suitable for gathering scientific data.

This galaxy, which lies in the constellation of Crater (the Cup), was imaged in May 2018 using the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 – FORS2) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope – VLT).

FORS2 is mo...

This is an image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA LRO WAC science team

Unique patterns, visible from backyard telescopes, may be produced by strongly magnetized lava. The mystery behind lunar swirls, one of the solar system’s most beautiful optical anomalies, may finally be solved thanks to a joint Rutgers University and University of California Berkeley study. The solution hints at the dynamism of the moon’s ancient past as a place with volcanic activity and an internally generated magnetic field. It also challenges our picture of the moon’s existing geology.

Lunar swirls resemble bright, snaky clouds painted on the moon’s dark surface. The most famous, called Reiner Gamma, is about 40 miles long and popular with backyard astronomers...

SwRI scientist studied the binary asteroid Patroclus-Menoetius, shown in this artist’s conception, to determine that a shake-up of the giant planets likely happened early in the solar system’s history, within the first 100 million years.
Credit: Image Courtesy of W.M. Keck Observatory/Lynette Cook

Asteroid pair is the ‘smoking gun’ indicating an earlier altercation amongst the giants. Scientists at Southwest Research Institute studied an unusual pair of asteroids and discovered that their existence points to an early planetary rearrangement in our solar system.

These bodies, called Patroclus and Menoetius, are targets of NASA’s upcoming Lucy mission. They are around 70 miles wide and orbit around each other as they collectively circle the Sun...