Category Astronomy/Space

This illustration shows the locations and energy ranges of ASTRO-H science instruments and their associated telescopes. One keV equals 1,000 electron volts, which is hundreds of times the energy of visible light. Credits: JAXA/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Black hole enthusiasts, galaxy cluster aficionados, and X-ray astronomers have much to be excited about. On Feb. 12, JAXA will be launching their 6th satellite dedicated to X-ray astronomy, ASTRO-H, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan. The observatory carries a state-of-the-art instrument and 2 telescope mirrors built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The launch is at 3:45 a.m. EST.

ASTRO-H is expected to provide breakthroughs in a wide variety of high-energy phenomena in the cosmos, ran...

An artist’s conception shows Kepler-36c as it might look from the surface of neighboring Kepler-36b. Credits: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/David Aguilar.

1,530 light years away in constellation Cygnus, Kepler-36 is a sun-like star orbited by 2 known alien worlds. The inner planet, Kepler-36b is a so-called “super-Earth,” ie larger than our home planet but smaller than Neptune; the larger Kepler-36c, resembling the solar system’s outermost planet, is described as a “mini-Neptune.” What is unusual about this planetary system is that these 2 exoworlds have very close orbits, separated only by 0.013 astronomical units (AU)—5X the Earth-moon distance...

A newly formed star lights up the surrounding cosmic clouds in this image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Dust particles in the vast clouds that surround the star HD 97300 diffuse its light, like a car headlight in enveloping fog, and create the reflection nebula IC 2631. Although HD 97300 is in the spotlight for now, the very dust that makes it so hard to miss heralds the birth of additional, potentially scene-stealing, future stars. Credit: ESO

The glowing region in a new image from MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope is a reflection nebula known as IC 2631. These objects are clouds of cosmic dust that reflect light from a nearby star into space, creating a stunning light show like the one captured here...

An annotated artist’s impression showing radio waves traveling from the new galaxies, then passing through the Milky Way and arriving at the Parkes radio telescope on Earth (not to scale). Credit: ICRAR

Hundreds of hidden nearby galaxies have been studied for the first time, shedding light on a mysterious gravitational anomaly dubbed the Great Attractor. Despite being just 250 million light years from Earth, the new galaxies had been hidden from view until now by our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Using CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope equipped with an innovative receiver, an international team of scientists were able to see through the Milky Way, into a previously unexplored region of space.

The discovery may help to explain the Great Attractor region, which appears to be drawing the Milky Way ...