Super Earth Planet Found Around One of the Closest Stars to us. But it’s...
The Red Dots and CARMENES projects recently announced the discovery of a super-Earth around Barnard's Star, making it the second-closest exoplanet to Earth. The post Super Earth Planet Found Around One...
View ArticleMassive Triple Star System Creates this Bizarre Swirling Pinwheel of Dust....
An international team of astronomers recently located a triple star system in our galaxy that will someday unleash a massive gamma-ray burst. The post Massive Triple Star System Creates this Bizarre...
View ArticleNew SPECULOOS Telescope Sees First Light. Soon it’ll be Seeing Habitable...
Our newest planet-hunting telescope is up and running at the ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile. SPECULOOS, which stands for Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars, is actually four...
View ArticleDo You See the “Cosmic Bat” in NGC 1788?
2,000 light years away, in the Orion constellation, lurks an eerie looking creature, made of glowing gas lit up by young stars: the Cosmic Bat. Its real name is NGC 1788. It’s a reflection nebula,...
View ArticleGround-Based Telescope Directly Observes the Atmosphere of an Extrasolar...
We’ve finally got our first optical look at an exoplanet and its atmosphere, and boy is it a strange place. The planet is called HR8799e, and its atmosphere is a complex one. HR8799e is in the grips of...
View ArticleA double asteroid came uncomfortably close this weekend. Here’s what...
Using the Very Large Telescope, a team of ESO scientists took some stunningly clear images of a double asteroid that recently swung by Earth. The post A double asteroid came uncomfortably close this...
View ArticleNew Instrument is Searching for Planets Around Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to us, at 4.37 light-years (about 25 trillion miles) away. In 2016, astronomers discovered an exoplanet orbiting one of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri...
View ArticleAsteroid 2006 QV89 Now Has a 0% Chance of Hitting Earth in September
Why report on an asteroid that has no chance of hitting Earth? Because this asteroid, known as 2006 QV89, has a history. A history of being kind of hard to track. As the name says, this asteroid was...
View ArticleAstronomers See Strontium in the Kilonova Wreckage, Proof that Neutron Star...
Astronomers have spotted Strontium in the aftermath of a collision between two neutron stars. This is the first time a heavy element has ever been identified in a kilonova, the explosive aftermath of...
View ArticleAsteroid Hygiea is Round Enough That it Could Qualify as a Dwarf Planet, the...
Using the Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers observed Hygeia and determined it could be the smallest dwarf planet to date! The post Asteroid Hygiea is Round Enough That it Could...
View ArticleAstronomers Find a Galaxy Containing Three Supermassive Black Holes at the...
NGC 6240 is a puzzle to astronomers. For a long time, astronomers thought the galaxy is a result of a merger between two galaxies, and that merger is evident in the galaxy’s form: It has an unsettled...
View Article100,000 Supernovae Exploded Near the Core of the Milky Way
Using data from the GALACICNUCLEUS survey, a team of astronomers has determined that star formation occurred in massive bursts in our galaxy, not continuously over time. The post 100,000 Supernovae...
View ArticleBlack Holes Were Already Feasting Just 1.5 Billion Years After the Big Bang
Using the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), an international team of astronomers observed gas clouds that in the early Universe that could explain how supermassive black holes formed so quickly. The...
View ArticleA Star is Orbiting the Milky Way’s Black Hole and Moving Exactly How Einstein...
After almost 30 years of observing a star that orbits the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, scientists have confirmed yet again that Einstein was right! The post A Star is Orbiting...
View ArticleClosest Black Hole Found, Just 1,000 Light-Years From Earth
Scientists with the ESO have detected a triple system with a black hole roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth - making it the closest ever observed. The post Closest Black Hole Found, Just 1,000...
View ArticleWow! An Actual Picture of Multiple Planets Orbiting a Sunlike Star
We’ve detected thousands of exoplanets, but for the most part, nobody’s ever seen them. They’re really just data, and graphs of light curves. The exoplanet images you see here at Universe Today and...
View ArticleThe European Extremely Large Telescope Just Got a 10% Budget Boost, Now...
Funding is an extremely important aspect of any large-scale science project. The whims of financial controllers can greatly expand or completely sink the efforts of hundred or thousands of other...
View ArticleHere’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope
In the vein of “go big or go home,” the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has launched a stunning new website to showcase information about — and match the scale of — its Extremely Large Telescope...
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The Giant Magellan Telescope’s 6th Mirror has Just Been Cast. One More to Go
By 2029, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in northern Chile will begin collecting its first light from the cosmos. As part of a new class of next-generation instruments known as “extremely large...
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A Powerful new Laser Will Enhance Adaptive Optics
In some applications, bigger lasers mean better lasers. That is the case in astronomy, where lasers are used for everything from telescope calibration to satellite communication. The European...
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