News (Page 391)

Galaxies in the infant universe were surprisingly mature Massive galaxies were already much more mature in the early universe than previously expected. This was shown by an international team of astronomers who studied 118 distant galaxies with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

The Grantecan finds the farthest black hole that belongs to a rare family of galaxies An international team of astronomers has identified one of the rarest known classes of gamma-ray emitting galaxies, called BL Lacertae, within the first 2 billion years of the age of the Universe. The team, that has used one of the largest optical telescope in the world, Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (Garafía, La Palma), consists of researchers from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM, Spain), DESY (Germany), University of California Riverside and Clemson University (USA). Their finding is published in The AstrophysicalRead More →

Water on the Moon: Research unveils its type and abundance – boosting exploration plans The Moon was for a long time considered to be bone dry, with analyses of returned lunar samples from the Apollo missions showing only trace amounts of water. These traces were in fact believed to be due to contamination on Earth. But over the past two decades, re-analyses of lunar samples, observations by spacecraft missions, and theoretical modeling have proved this initial assessment to be wrong. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Massive asteroid subject of new findings A University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) astronomer has revealed critical new findings linked to a large asteroid expected to pass extremely close to Earth. Dave Tholen and collaborators have announced the detection of Yarkovsky acceleration on the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. This acceleration arises from an extremely weak force on an object due to non-uniform thermal radiation. This force is particularly important for the asteroid Apophis, as it affects the probability of an Earth impact in 2068. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Moon richer in water than once thought There may be far more water on the Moon than previously thought, according to two studies published Monday raising the tantalising prospect that astronauts on future space missions could find refreshment—and maybe even fuel—on the lunar surface. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

The magnetic fields of the jellyfish galaxy JO206 An international team of astronomers has gained new insights into the physical conditions prevailing in the gas tail of so-called jellyfish galaxies. They are particularly interested in the parameters that lead to the formation of new stars in the tail outside the galaxy disk. They analyzed, for example, the strength and orientation of the magnetic fields in the galaxy JO206. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Study offers more complete view of massive asteroid Psyche A new study authored by Southwest Research Institute planetary scientist Dr. Tracy Becker discusses several new views of the asteroid 16 Psyche, including the first ultraviolet observations. The study, which was published today in The Planetary Science Journal and presented at the virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences, paints a clearer view of the asteroid than was previously available. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

SOFIA discovers water on sunlit surface of moon NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Tiny moon shadows may harbor hidden stores of ice Hidden pockets of water could be much more common on the surface of the moon than scientists once suspected, according to new research led by the University of Colorado Boulder. In some cases, these tiny patches of ice might exist in permanent shadows no bigger than a penny. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Data reveals evidence of molecular absorption in the atmosphere of a hot Neptune An international team of scientists recently measured the spectrum of the atmosphere of a rare hot Neptune exoplanet, whose discovery by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was announced just last month. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Astronomers enlist AI in the search for ‘lethal’ baby star eruptions Young stars—just like young humans—are prone to temper flares. But star flares can incinerate everything around them, including the atmospheres of nearby planets starting to form. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

The first habitable-zone, Earth-sized planet discovered with exoplanet survey spacecraft TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, was launched in 2018 with the goal of discovering small planets around the Sun’s nearest neighbors, stars bright enough to allow for follow-up characterizations of their planets’ masses and atmospheres. TESS has so far discovered seventeen small planets around eleven nearby stars that are M dwarfs—stars that are smaller than the Sun (less than about 60% of the Sun’s mass) and cooler (surface temperatures less than about 3900 kelvin). In a series of three papers that appeared together this month, astronomers report that one of these planets, TOI-700d, isRead More →

New sub-Saturn-mass exoplanet discovered Using the microlensing technique, an international team of astronomers has detected a new distant alien world. The newly found exoplanet, designated OGLE-2018-BLG-0799Lb, is about five times less massive than Jupiter and orbits a very low-mass dwarf. The finding is reported in a paper published October 17 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →