Category Astronomy/Space

Phase-folded unbinned HATSouth light curves for HATS-50 (upper left), HATS-51 (upper right), HATS-52 (lower left) and HATS-53 (lower right). In each case we show two panels. The top panel shows the full light curve, while the bottom panel shows the light curve zoomed-in on the transit. The solid lines show the model fits to the light curves. The dark filled circles in the bottom panels show the light curves binned in phase with a bin size of 0.002. Credit: Henning et al. 2017.

An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of four new ‘hot Jupiter’ extrasolar worlds by the HATSouth survey. The newly found exoplanets received designations HATS-50b through HATS-53b...

Hubble captures planetary nebula NGC 6326
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope captured what looks like a colorful holiday ornament in space. It’s actually an image of NGC 6326, a planetary nebula with glowing wisps of outpouring gas that are lit up by a central star nearing the end of its life.

When a star ages and the red giant phase of its life comes to an end, it starts to eject layers of gas from its surface leaving behind a hot and compact white dwarf. Sometimes this ejection results in elegantly symmetric patterns of glowing gas, but NGC 6326 is much less structured. It is in the constellation of Ara, the Altar, 11,000 light-years from Earth.

Planetary nebulae are one of the main ways in which elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are dispersed into space after th...

K. L. Aplin et al. Solar-Driven Variation in the Atmosphere of Uranus, Geophysical Research Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075374

Changes in solar activity influence the color and formation of clouds around the planet, researchers at Oxford and Reading universities found. The icy planet is second furthest from the sun in the solar system and takes 84 Earth years to complete a full orbit – one Uranian year. The researchers found that, once the planet’s long and strange seasons are taken into account, it appears brighter and dimmer over a cycle of 11 years. This is the regular cycle of solar activity which also affects sun spots.

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Researchers from NASA Langley Research Center and the University of Hawaii developed a new micro Raman spectroscopy instrument to search for life on the surface of other planets. Looking for evidence of life on other planets continues to be an important part of the NASA Planetary Exploration Program. Pictured is Derek Davis, a student from Old Dominion University, working on the instrument. Credit: M. Nurul Abedin, NASA Langley Research Center

Compact spectroscopy instrument offers sensitive and fast detection for planetary exploration. The new instrument is designed to detect compounds and minerals associated with biological activity more quickly and with greater sensitivity than previous instruments...