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Recent Articles
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Topic: Milky Way Galaxy
Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of 150,000 volunteers using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 to find new examples of brown dwarfs. These objects are balls of gas that are not heavy enough to be stars since they can’t power themselves through nuclear fusion the way stars do. ![]() Artist’s conception of a brown dwarf, featuring the cloudy atmosphere of a planet and the residual light of an almost-star. (NASA/ESA/JPL) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA explains Black Holes
Two main classes of black holes have been extensively observed. Stellar-mass black holes with three to dozens of times the Sun’s mass are spread throughout our Milky Way galaxy, while supermassive monsters weighing 100,000 to billions of solar masses are found in the centers of most big galaxies, ours included. ![]() This simulation of a supermassive black hole shows how it distorts the starry background and captures light, producing a black hole silhouettes. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; background, ESA/Gaia/DPAC) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA Pinpoints Source of Unique X-ray, Radio Burst
“Before this event, a wide variety of scenarios could explain the origin of FRBs,” said Chris Bochenek, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Caltech who led one study of the radio event. ![]() A powerful X-ray burst erupts from a magnetar – a supermagnetized version of a stellar remnant known as a neutron star – in this illustration. A radio burst detected April 28 occurred during a flare-up like this on a magnetar called SGR 1935. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA)) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA’s SOFIA telescope discovers Pulsing Stars ejecting Carbon Gas, Dust into Interstellar Space
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, examined several types of pulsating stars in our Milky Way galaxy, watching as some spewed carbon, a key ingredient of life as we know it, into interstellar space. ![]() Image of a carbon star known as CW Leonis or IRC+10216 taken by the Herschel Space Observatory. SOFIA found that some carbon stars with especially strong pulsations, called Mira variables, distribute large amounts of carbon to interstellar space where it can be used as a building block for life and other complex structures. (ESA/PACS/SPIRE/ Consortia) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: News | No Comments
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope discovers large Star Forming Nebula
Located about 17,000 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Aquila in the night sky, W51 is about 350 light-years – or about 2 quadrillion miles – across. It is almost invisible to telescopes that collect visible light (the kind human eyes detect), because that light is blocked by interstellar dust clouds that lie between W51 and Earth. ![]() The star-forming nebula W51 is one of the largest “star factories” in the Milky Way galaxy. Interstellar dust blocks the visible light emitted by the region, but it is revealed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which captures infrared light that can penetrate dust clouds. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA’s SOFIA Telescope observes Magnetic Fields affecting Middle of Milky Way Galaxy
The research, presented this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, could help answer longstanding mysteries about why our black hole is relatively quiet compared to others, and why the formation of new stars in our galaxy’s core is lower than expected. ![]() A composite image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy, known as Sagittarius A. SOFIA found that magnetic fields, shown as streamlines, are strong enough to control the material moving around the black hole, even in the presence of enormous gravitational forces. (NASA/SOFIA/L. Proudfit; ESA/Herschel; Hubble Space Telescope) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory catches Outburst from a Black Hole
The black hole and its companion star make up a system called MAXI J1820+070, located in our Galaxy about 10,000 light years from Earth. The black hole in MAXI J1820+070 has a mass about eight times that of the Sun, identifying it as a so-called stellar-mass black hole, formed by the destruction of a massive star. (This is in contrast to supermassive black holes that contain millions or billions of times the Sun’s mass.) ![]() Astronomers have caught a stellar-mass black hole hurling hot material into space at close to the speed of light using four Chandra observations taken in 2018 and 2019. “Day 0” corresponds to the first observation on November 13th, 2018 and the jet launched on July 7th, 2018. A large optical and infrared image of the Milky Way galaxy is shown, with the location of MAXI J1820+070 marked by a cross. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/Université de Paris/M. Espinasse et al.; Optical/IR:PanSTARRS) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA’s Spitzer Telescope observes orbit of one Black Hole around Larger Black Hole
The OJ 287 galaxy hosts one of the largest black holes ever found, with over 18 billion times the mass of our Sun. Orbiting this behemoth is another black hole with about 150 million times the Sun’s mass. ![]() This image shows two massive black holes in the OJ 287 galaxy. The smaller black hole orbits the larger one, which is also surrounded by a disk of gas. When the smaller black hole crashes through the disk, it produces a flare brighter than 1 trillion stars. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA’s WFRIST telescope to search for Exoplanets using Microlensing
Combining WFIRST’s findings with results from NASA’s Kepler and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) missions will complete the first planet census that is sensitive to a wide range of planet masses and orbits, bringing us a step closer to discovering habitable Earth-like worlds beyond our own. ![]() NASA’s WFIRST will make its microlensing observations in the direction of the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The higher density of stars will yield more exoplanet detections. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observes Quasar emitting Energy across the Galaxy
Quasars are extremely remote celestial objects, emitting exceptionally large amounts of energy. Quasars contain supermassive black holes fueled by infalling matter that can shine 1,000 times brighter than their host galaxies of hundreds of billions of stars. ![]() This is an illustration of a distant galaxy with an active quasar at its center. A quasar emits exceptionally large amounts of energy generated by a supermassive black hole fueled by infalling matter. Using the unique capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered that blistering radiation pressure from the vicinity of the black hole pushes material away from the galaxy’s center at a fraction of the speed of light. (NASA, ESA and J. Olmsted (STScI)) «Read the rest of this article» Sections: Technology | No Comments
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