NASA continues to outdo itself with the magnificent images of space that it releases – but even by NASA’s high standards, a 12-year timelapse of the entire night sky is an impressive achievement. The images were taken by the NEOWISE … Read More
A strange case of a delayed eruption surprised astronomers. Supermassive black holes tear stars to pieces when they approach too closely. This is known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). The spewing out of material follows the destruction of the … Read More
Karl Schwarzchild proposed black holes in 1916 as a solution to Einstein’s field equations for his Theory of General Relativity. By the mid-twentieth century, astronomers were using indirect methods to detect black holes for the first time, observing their effects … Read More
Disturbances in the dwarf galaxies of one of Earth’s closest galaxy clusters point to a different gravity theory. Dwarf galaxies are small, faint galaxies found in or near larger galaxies or galaxy clusters. As a result, they may be impacted … Read More
J1407b, a young exoplanet, has a massive ring system that is much heavier and 200 times larger than Saturn’s rings. Astronomers discovered the giant planet, which could be a brown dwarf (a failed star), when it eclipsed J1407, a very … Read More
In late 2020, scientists studying Venus’s atmosphere announced the surprising – and controversial – discovery of phosphine, a chemical produced primarily by living organisms on Earth. At the time, Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in Wales and her colleagues wondered … Read More