Category Astronomy/Space

This entrancing image shows a few of the tenuous threads that comprise Sh2-308, a faint and wispy shell of gas located 5,200 light-years away in the constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog). Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

This entrancing image shows a few of the tenuous threads that comprise Sh2-308, a faint and wispy shell of gas located 5,200 light-years away in the constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog). Sh2-308 is a large bubble-like structure wrapped around an extremely large, bright type of star known as a Wolf-Rayet Star – this particular star is called EZ Canis Majoris. These type of stars are among the brightest and most massive stars in the Universe, tens of times more massive than our own sun, and they represent the extremes of stellar evolution.

Thick winds continually pou...

The light from the supernova iPTF16geu and of its host galaxy is warped and amplified by the curvature of space mass of a foreground galaxy. In the case of the point-like supernova, the light is split into four images. These have been resolved with the Hubble Space Telescope. Original image by ALMA (ESO/NRAO/NAOJ), L. Calçada (ESO), Y. Hezaveh et al, edited and modified by Joel Johansson

An international team led by Ariel Goobar at Stockholm University has detected for the first time multiple images from a gravitationally lensed Type Ia supernova iPTF16geu. The new observations suggest promising new avenues for the study of the accelerated expansion of the Universe, gravity and distribution of dark matter in the universe...

The Milky Way (stock image). Credit: © khlongwangchao / Fotolia

Analysis of Green Bank Telescope observations made public, including 11 events ranked highest for significance. Breakthrough Listen – the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe – has released its 11 events ranked highest for significance as well as summary data analysis results. It is considered unlikely that any of these signals originate from artificial extraterrestrial sources, but the search continues. Listen has submitted the analysis of 692 stars, comprising all spectral types, observed during its first year of observations with the Green Bank Telescope.

Breakthrough Listen has so far acquired several petabytes of data using the Green Bank Radio Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, Lick Observatory’s ...

1.A diverse landscape. A false color image highlights the complex geology of the Northeast Syrtis Major region on Mars. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
2. A detailed map shows the the various geologic units exposed at Northeast Syrtis.
Credit: Mike Bramble/Mustard Lab

Mineral deposits in a region on Mars called Northeast Syrtis Major suggest a plethora of once-habitable environments. By mapping those deposits in the region’s larger geological context, the research could help set the stage for a possible rover mission in 2020. Using the highest resolution images available from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the study maps the extent of those key mineral deposits across the surface and places them within the region’s larger geological context.

“When w...