giant

For The First Time, We’ve Seen a Red Giant Star Transition Into a Supernova

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We’re seeing many spectacular sights out in space as our telescopes become more powerful, but there’s a new contender for the most exciting one yet: According to researchers, we’ve observed a red supergiant star exploding into a supernova for the first time.   Supernova (SN) 2020tlf, to give it its technical name, was watched for … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope, the biggest ever built, fully unfolds giant mirror to gaze at the cosmos

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Astronomers and space fans around the world can breathe a sigh of relief: The James Webb Space Telescope is now fully deployed. The $10 billion NASA observatory unfolded the second “wing” of its massive primary mirror today (Jan. 8), bringing the light-collecting structure up to its full size and marking the end of the mission’s … Read more

Astronomers discover ‘Maggie,’ a giant atomic cloud stretching across the Milky Way

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Stretching thousands of light-years across the Milky Way, a newly discovered filament of hydrogen named Maggie is one of the biggest structures ever discovered in our galaxy, and researchers think there could be others like it. A group of astronomers led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy (MPIA) in Germany has spotted … Read more

A Giant Asteroid Bigger Than The Empire State Building Is About to Zip Past Earth

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A large, rocky asteroid is going to fly by Earth next week. At 1 kilometer (3,280 feet) long, it’s roughly two and a half times the height of the Empire State Building, and it’s been classed a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” due to its size and its regular close visits to our planet.   But don’t … Read more

Space tourism took a giant leap in 2021: Here’s 10 milestones from the year

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This year saw more space tourists fly to space on a bunch of different systems, and the story has only just begun.  Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX each flew their first tourist-focused missions this year, sending aloft several people each with minimal training in professional spaceflight. Meanwhile, Roscosmos (the Russian federal space agency) brought … Read more

Exoplanets: Ultra-hot gas giant orbits its star once every 16 hours

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The second hottest planet ever found is being pulled into its star faster than any planet we have seen before Space 30 November 2021 By Jonathan O’Callaghan Artist’s impression of a hot planet transiting in front of its parent star ESA/ATG medialab, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO A gas giant exoplanet has been found that orbits … Read more

Exoplanets: Small Jupiter-like worlds hint we need to rethink gas giant formation

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We thought young gas giant planets would be large and low-density, but the gas giants around a star that is just 20 million years old don’t fit this model Space 2 December 2021 By Chen Ly An artist’s impression of a Jupiter-like exoplanet Alexandr Yurtchenko/Alamy Two Jupiter-like planets that orbit a young star are much … Read more