Category Astronomy/Space

On a clear evening in April of 1789, the renowned astronomer William Herschel continued his unrelenting survey of the night sky, hunting for new cosmic objects — and found cause to celebrate! He spotted this bright spiral galaxy, named NGC 4707, lurking in the constellation of Canes Venatici or The Hunting Dog. NGC 4707 lies roughly 22 million light-years from Earth. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

On a clear evening in April of 1789, the renowned astronomer William Herschel continued his unrelenting survey of the night sky, hunting for new cosmic objects – and found cause to celebrate! He spotted this bright spiral galaxy, named NGC 4707, lurking in the constellation of Canes Venatici or The Hunting Dog. NGC 4707 lies roughly 22 million light-years from Earth.

NGC stands for “New General Catalo...

Vela supercluster (VSC) and the Shapely supercluster (SC)

The Australian National University (ANU) is part of an international team of astronomers that found one of the Universe’s biggest superclusters of galaxies near the Milky Way. Professor Matthew Colless from ANU said the Vela supercluster, which had previously gone undetected as it was hidden by stars and dust in the Milky Way, was a huge mass that influenced the motion of our Galaxy.

“This is one of the biggest concentrations of galaxies in the Universe – possibly the biggest in the neighbourhood of our Galaxy, but that will need to be confirmed by further study,” said Professor Colless...

Tabby’s Star in infrared (2MASS survey) and ultraviolet (GALEX).

In its search for extrasolar planets, the Kepler space telescope looks for stars whose light flux periodically dims, signaling the passing of an orbiting planet in front of the star. But the timing and duration of diminished light flux episodes Kepler detected coming from KIC 846852, known as Tabby’s star, are a mystery. These dimming events vary in magnitude and don’t occur at regular intervals, making an orbiting planet an unlikely explanation. The source of these unusual dimming events is the subject of intense speculation: from asteroid belts to alien activity.

Now a team of scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggest the luminosity variations may be intrinsic to the star itself...