Category Astronomy/Space

The Large (centre left) and Small (centre right) Magellanic Clouds are seen in the sky above a radio telescope that is part of the Australia Telescope Compact Array at the Paul Wild Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. Image: Mike Salway

For the first time, astronomers have detected a magnetic field associated with the Magellanic Bridge, the filament of gas stretching 75000 light-years between the Milky Way Galaxy’s nearest galactic neighbours: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively). Visible in the southern night sky, the LMC and SMC are dwarf galaxies that orbit our home galaxy and lie at a distance of 160 and 200 thousand light-years from Earth respectively.

Such cosmic magnetic fields can only be detected indirectly, and this detection was made by observ...

An infrared image reveals strange bright streaks extending from Santa Fe crater on Mars. Researchers suggest the streaks were caused by tornado-force winds created by the impact that formed the crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University

In looking at NASA images of Mars a few years ago, Brown University geologist Peter Schultz noticed sets of strange bright streaks emanating from a few large-impact craters on the planet’s surface. The streaks are odd in that they extend much farther from the craters than normal ejecta patterns, and they are only visible in thermal infrared images taken during the Martian night...

Unusual galaxy IRAS 06076-2139, found in the constellation Lepus (The Hare).

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the unusual galaxy IRAS 06076-2139, found in the constellation Lepus (The Hare). Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments observed the galaxy from a distance of 500 million light-years.

This particular object stands out from the crowd by actually being composed of two separate galaxies rushing past each other at about 2 million kilometers (1,243,000 miles) per hour. This speed is most likely too fast for them to merge and form a single galaxy...

The atmosphere of the distant “warm Neptune” HAT-P-26b, illustrated here, is unexpectedly primitive, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. By combining observations from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, researchers determined that, unlike Neptune and Uranus, the exoplanet has relatively low metallicity, an indication of the how rich the planet is in all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Credit: NASA/GSFC

A pioneering new study uncovering the ‘primitive atmosphere’ surrounding a distant world could provide a pivotal breakthrough in the search to how planets form and develop in far-flung galaxies...