Milky Way

Intergalactic supernova: Remnant of rare cosmic object may have been spotted outside Milky Way

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A ring-shaped object 160,000 light years away may be the first intergalactic supernova remnant ever observed Space 26 January 2022 By Jonathan O’Callaghan The remnant of an intergalactic supernova may have been spotted between the Large Magellanic Cloud (pictured) and the Milky Way Chandra X-ray Observatory The remains of a star that exploded in intergalactic … Read more

Black hole created star-forming gas jets in a dwarf galaxy

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Black holes located in dwarf galaxies usually stop star formation, but now one has been seen seeding new stars through a huge plume of ionised gas Space 19 January 2022 By Alex Wilkins A dwarf galaxy known as Hen 2-10 NASA A black hole at the centre of a dwarf galaxy has birthed new stars … Read more

Astronomers Have Found Another Possible ‘Exomoon’ beyond Our Solar System

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And then there were two—maybe. Astronomers say they have found a second plausible candidate for a moon beyond our solar system, an exomoon, orbiting a world nearly 6,000 light-years from Earth. Called Kepler-1708 b-i, the moon appears to be a gas-dominated object, slightly smaller than Neptune, orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet around a sunlike star—an unusual … Read more

Landmark Webb Observatory Is Now Officially a Telescope

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After several tense days of unfurling and clicking its various parts into place, the biggest and most sophisticated space telescope ever launched is now complete. On 8 January, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope slowly swung the last 3 of its 18 hexagonal mirror segments into position, locking them together into one 6.5-metre-wide, gold-coated cosmic eye. … Read more

U.S. and Chinese Scientists Propose Bold New Missions beyond the Solar System

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Right now our solar system is barreling into a region of space that we know next to nothing about. For about 60,000 years, our sun has been traversing the local interstellar cloud (LIC), a region of gas and dust within a mostly empty bubble that was carved out of the Milky Way by supernovae millions … Read more

Astronomers Report a Monstrous Eruption from a Supermagnetic Star

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A dense, magnetic star violently erupted and spat out as much energy as a billion suns — and it happened in a fraction of a second, scientists recently reported. This type of star, known as a magnetar, is a neutron star with an exceptionally strong magnetic field, and magnetars often flare spectacularly and without warning. But even though … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope Completes Crucial Sunshield Deployment

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The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully deployed all five layers of its tennis-court-sized sunshield, a prerequisite for the telescope’s science operations and the most nerve-wracking part of its risky deployment. The challenging procedure, which required careful tensioning of each of the five hair-thin layers of the elaborate sunshield structure was a seamless success today (Jan. 4). … Read more

We’ve seen our galaxy’s huge black hole more clearly than ever before

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Astronomers have observed Sagittarius A* – the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy – closer than ever before, and Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity still holds up Space 14 December 2021 By Leah Crane Stars orbiting very close to Sagittarius A* (centre), the supermassive black hole at the heart of the … Read more

NASA Launches IXPE, a New X-ray Space Telescope

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SpaceX successfully launched its 28th rocket of the year early Thursday morning (Dec. 9), ferrying an X-ray observatory into space for NASA. A used Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 1 a.m. (0600 GMT) from Pad 39A here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). The mission marked the fifth … Read more