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+19 +4
Andromeda Contains the Remnants of a Recent "Feeding Event"
There’s a growing body of evidence that galaxies grow large by merging with other galaxies. Telescopes like the Hubble have captured dozens of interacting galaxies, including well-known ones like Arp 248. The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, and a new study shows that our neighbour has consumed other galaxies in two distinct epochs.
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+17 +2
‘Overweight’ neutron star defies a black hole theory, say astronomers
An “overweight” neutron star has been observed by astronomers, who say the mysterious object confounds astronomical theories. The hypermassive star was produced by the merger of two smaller neutron stars. Normally such collisions result in neutron stars so massive that they collapse into a black hole almost instantaneously under their own gravity. But the latest observations revealed the monster star hovering in view for more than a day before it faded out of sight.
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+23 +3
Black hole announces itself to astronomers by violently ripping apart a star
A hitherto undiscovered black hole announced its presence to astronomers when it ripped apart and devoured a star that wandered too close to it. The intermediate-mass black hole located in a dwarf galaxy a million light-years from Earth shredded the star in an occurrence that astronomers call a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE). The TDE made itself visible when it blasted out a flare of radiation so powerful that it briefly outshone every star in its dwarf galaxy home combined.
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+17 +3
NASA’s New Horizons mission begins again at the edge of the solar system
On New Year’s Day three years ago, a small spacecraft zoomed by a chunk of ice billions of miles away, and scientists on Earth cheered. That was the second time the New Horizons probe got up close and personal with an object in the far-away Kuiper Belt—after capturing images of Pluto, its first target, in unprecedented detail.
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+29 +2
Milky Way stars photobomb picturesque spiral galaxy in stunning Hubble photo
This galaxy is located 300 million light-years away, but the star to the right is much closer to Earth.
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+17 +3
Did Supermassive Black Holes Collapse Directly out of Giant Clouds of gas? It Could Depend on Magnetic Fields
Roughly half a century ago, astronomers realized that the powerful radio source coming from the center of our galaxy (Sagitarrius A*) was a “monster” black hole. Since then, they have found that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) reside at the center of most massive galaxies. This leads to what is known as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) or quasars, where the central region of a galaxy is so energetic that it outshines all of the stars in its galactic disk. In all that time, astronomers have puzzled over how these behemoths (which play a crucial role in galactic evolution) originated.
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+11 +1
Hubble Found an Eerie 'Cosmic Keyhole' Deep in Space And We're in Awe
When it comes to dramatic and awe-inspiring pictures of space, few can contend with what appears to be a pic of, well, nothing at all: a fascinating image of what seems to be a hole in the fabric of space, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
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+3 +1
New Flash Of Deep Space Could Be Massive Star Explosion
Scientists have discovered an ultra-bright phenomenon in the distant universe that could have come from a star destroyed by a black hole. The fleeting phenomenon evolves much faster than a supernova but is just as bright as the massive star explosion.
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+18 +2
Discovery could dramatically narrow search for space creatures
An Earth-like planet orbiting an M dwarf — the most common type of star in the universe — appears to have no atmosphere at all. This discovery could cause a major shift in the search for life on other planets.
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+22 +5
Webb Telescope Shows the Pillars of Creation Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before
The famous clouds of gas and dust are dazzling in the state-of-the-art instrument’s eye.
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Analysis+4 +1
First known map of night sky found hidden in Medieval parchment
Fabled star catalogue by ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus had been feared lost.
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+3 +1
The Moon Might be One Large Chunk that was Blasted Off the Earth Billions of Years Ago
A new study says the Moon could have formed immediately after the impact between Earth and Theia. High-res simulations show how.
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+16 +2
Astronomers detect heaviest element ever found in exoplanet atmospheres
Astronomers have spotted an unexpected chemical element high within the atmosphere of two sizzling exoplanets where liquid iron and gems rain down from the skies. The two exoplanets, which orbit separate stars beyond our solar system, are ultrahot gas giants called WASP-76b and WASP-121b. Astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to detect barium at high altitudes in the atmosphere of each exoplanet.
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+14 +1
Red Alert: Massive stars sound warning they are about to go supernova
Astronomers from Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Montpellier have devised an 'early warning' system to sound the alert when a massive star is about to end its life in a supernova explosion. The work was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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+2 +1
Astronomers detect an inflated 'hot Jupiter' exoplanet
An international team of astronomers has discovered a new inflated "hot Jupiter" exoplanet as part of the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). The newfound alien world, designated NGTS-21b is about 30% larger and more than two times as massive as Jupiter. The finding was detailed in a paper published October 3 on arXiv.org.
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+15 +2
'Wobbling black hole' most extreme example ever detected
Researchers at Cardiff University have identified a peculiar twisting motion in the orbits of two colliding black holes, an exotic phenomenon predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity. Their study, which is published in Nature and led by Professor Mark Hannam, Dr. Charlie Hoy and Dr. Jonathan Thompson, reports that this is the first time this effect, known as precession, has been seen in black holes, where the twisting is 10 billion times faster than in previous observations.
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+14 +2
‘We’ve Never Seen Anything Like This Before:’ Black Hole Spews Out Material Years After Shredding Star
In October 2018, a small star was ripped to shreds when it wandered too close to a black hole in a galaxy located 665 million light years away from Earth. Though it may sound thrilling, the event did not come as a surprise to astronomers who occasionally witness these violent incidents while scanning the night sky.
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+10 +2
Mock lava worlds will help the James Webb Space Telescope understand exoplanets
Scientists have modeled the molten surfaces of 16 different types of lava worlds in the laboratory, creating a catalog of basic types of rocky exoplanet that astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope can reference to characterize alien worlds.
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+22 +4
Earth is ‘well-hidden’ from extraterrestrial civilizations hunting for habitable planets
Earth is “well-hidden” to extraterrestrial observers using photometric microlensing to hunt for habitable planets that might support life, an international team of researchers has concluded. The findings could also help to narrow down the best areas of the galaxy to target in our own searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
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+17 +3
Scientists stumped by strange polygon-shaped cyclones on Jupiter
Enormous polygon-shaped cyclone systems at Jupiter’s north and south poles have left scientists baffled over how they maintain their bizarre but beautifully geometric shapes for years. The hurricane-force storms — each the size of the continental United States — have remained inexplicably stable in their strange configurations since they were first discovered by the Juno spacecraft in 2017.
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