Through a combination of theoretical models and Infrared observations, Researchers found a specific group of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars that shrouded in a high fraction of iron dust. This latest research, published in the journal ‘The Astrophysical Journal Letters’, compared the Infrared observations of the Spitzer Space Telescope with the theoretical models of…
The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) of NASA allowed the researchers to study a new stellar-mass black hole called J1820. NICER found this massive black hole (10 times the mass of the Sun) by detecting the X-rays emitting from it as it consumed material from a companion star. The name given to this newly-discovered…
The sample returned by Apollo 14, 48 years ago, contains the oldest Earth Rock discovered till date. Where would you look for the oldest Earth rock? Probably in the ocean or somewhere underground. As it turns out, the oldest Earth rock was found on the Moon! Yes, you heard it right. An international group of…
The brightest quasar in the history of the universe was observed at a distance of 12.8 billion light-years. Scientists are now studying light that has been around since the beginning of time. An observation from Gemini Observatory found a distant quasar with the brightest radio emission ever detected. Astronomers were able to see the light…
In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The first image from the clip is taken by the Voyager 1 Space Probe on February 14, 1990, at a distance of 6,054,587,000 Kilometers (3,762,146,000 miles). The rest of the clip is part…
An international team of researchers detected the light from around the first massive black holes in the universe to challenge the long-accepted theory about massive black hole formation. Despite being confident about their existence, scientists have been unable to discover the source of these ancient black holes (quasars). In order to find a solution for…
According to a recent study conducted at the University of Michigan, Messier 94 has only 2 satellite galaxies. Astronomers have long known that the Milky Way has around 10 smaller, satellite galaxies around it. Each of these galaxies has at least a million stars and this number can increase up to a billion in case…
SN 2015cp, a supernova at a distance of 545 million light-years, was triggered by a companion star which marked the death of its partner in the binary system. Supernovae are quite common because all the stars of the universe eventually run out of fuel and die with a massive explosion. Having said that, there…
Astronomers have finally found a double star system that has flipped its surrounding disc beyond the orbital plane of its stars. According to the latest research published in the journal ‘Nature Astronomy’, an international team of astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to locate a double star system that has flipped its planet-forming…
A telescope in Canada detects repeating bursts of Radio waves (emanating beyond our galaxy) for the first time since 2007. Astronomers identified mysterious repeating energy bursts from deep space in the summer of 2018. Researchers analyzed the collected data and published their report on the 9th January 2019. According to that, the source of these…
Chang’e 4 Mission touched down the mysterious side of the moon. China is the latest addition to the list of countries which have visited the natural satellite of our planet. The Chang’e 4 Mission achieved this feat on 3rd January 2019. What made this event more special is that the spacecraft landed on the far…
Scientists recorded a big flare in a small package on an M-type star. Astronomers have witnessed a huge stellar flare on a baby star. They say that this flare is about 10,000 times bigger than the largest solar flare recorded in history. Some say that the flare is so powerful that it may create new…
New Horizons came within 3,500 kilometers of 2014 MU69 on New Year Day. The New Horizons Spacecraft of NASA had a closer look at the Ultima Thule on 1st January 2019. This was a historic moment for humanity as it is now the most distant object ever explored by us. The official name of this…
The dense rings of dust offer more time to young planetesimals to grow and become fully-fledged planets. The first large-scale, high-resolution survey Protoplanetary Disks by making use of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) yielded around 4,000 exoplanets. Some popular ones among them are massive rocky worlds, hot Jupiters, and icy dwarf planets. The Disk…
Parker Solar Probe might help us to know more about the Sun, sooner than expected. The Parker Solar Probe project was announced in 2009 and totaled to $1.5 billion. Named after Eugene Parker, a physicist at the University of Chicago, the spacecraft was the first ever by NASA to be named after a living human…
Welcome to Astronomy for Kids – A Free Introductory Guide! Astronomy is a very exciting area of study which you’re never too young to get started in. This guide will explain the main areas of astronomy, including the definitions of all the things you are likely to come across, as well as what kind of…
The full moon of December will coincide with the Winter Solstice and will make a close pass by the Aldebaran. The full moon of December is generally called the Full Cold Moon. According to NASA, the moon will arrive on 22nd of December and will be visible in the constellation Taurus. It will become full…
Voyager 2 has become the second probe to break through the Heliopause. One of the most popular explorers of our age, Voyager 2, was launched on 20th August 1977 with the intentions of studying the outer planets. However, it exceeded all the expectations (just like its twin Voyager 1) and entered the interstellar space on…
OSIRIS-REx will ultimately collect and deliver 60 grams of regolith from Bennu to Earth. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft of NASA reached its target, asteroid Bennu, on 3rd December 2018 after completing a journey of 2 billion kilometers. The primary science objective of this mission is to improve the estimates…
ASASSN-18bt exhibited some unusual behavior to surprise researchers. Images of the newly discovered supernova ASASSN-18bt may change our perspective about the origin of the universe. Six images were captured in total: Three before the explosion and three were taken after that. The images are credited to the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) project, the…
Scientists may have moved a step closer towards finding the origin of galaxies. Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered a huge cluster of stars about 300 million light-years away. The number of these star clusters reach a total of a whopping 22,426. Globular star clusters are more common than full-scale galaxies which makes…
Researchers propose that TRAPPIST-1e resembles Earth the most and it has an Oxygen-rich atmosphere to go with it. TRAPPIST-1 is a small, cool dwarf star located 39 light years or 235 trillion miles from our Sun. It is orbited by seven terrestrial (Earth-like) planets. These planets are temperate, which means the conditions there allow water…
Progenitor Stars are so massive that they can explode in a supernova despite losing their outer layers. A supernova is an event that follows the death of specific types of stars. It radiates more heat energy than our sun will in its entire lifetime. The primary source of heavy metals is also labeled as the…
For the first time ever since its discovery in the 1960s, researchers have been able to describe an Aurora, physically. Aurora is a natural light that can, predominantly, be seen in the skies of the high-latitude regions of the Earth. They are produced when charged particles (protons and electrons) from the solar wind and Magnetospheric…
The existence of quantum stars may help explain dark matter which makes up 27% of the universe. Recently, researchers discovered how quantum stars could form and be hidden throughout the universe. These strange star-like objects may theoretically act like single, giant atoms. Bright, fast bursts of cosmic radio waves that have confounded astronomers and fanned stories of…
The current sheet causes all the disruptions in the dust tail following the changes in the magnetic field. In January 2007, the twin STEREO satellites captured the first ever satellite images of Comet McNaught. STEREO-B was the first to begin its operation. First few minutes of its observation did cause some panic among the mission’s…
Scientists might have discovered a new way of setting up huge neural networks in an attempt to discover far-off galaxies. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is simulated intelligence demonstrated by machines in contrast to the natural thinking done by humans. These machines (agents) are made to mimic the way we think through computer programming. The ability of…
The ejected cold gas of Abell 2597 falls back to the black hole. Supermassive Black holes are the largest among all the types of black holes. They are present in the center of almost all the known massive galaxies. As far as our own galaxy is concerned, astronomers believe that it lies somewhere around the…
A massive collision, which took place at around 10 billion years ago, fed all the stars in the inner halo of the Milky Way. Space might seem a pretty peaceful place from down here but a closer observation reveals that things are quite violent up there. Events like Supernovae, strikes from Meteors and Comets, and…
A recent study that took place at Lund University in Sweden, alongside some other studies, has presented effective means to probe Dark Matter which accounts for 85% of the universe. A number of recent studies have aided in the better discernment of large volumes of data present at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) which…