As white dwarfs form, they get a "kick" that propels them to speeds of thousands of miles per hour, new evidence from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows. Astronomers used Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys to look at the distribution of white dwarfs in the ancient globular cluster NGC 6397, a dense swarm of hundreds of thousands of stars. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

Through some of the very first scientific observations with the brand-new Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, astronomers has found that a recently discovered tiny companion galaxy to our Milky Way, named the Hercules Dwarf Galaxy, has truly exceptional properties: while basically all of its known peers in the realm of these tiny dwarf galaxies are rather round, this galaxy at a distance o... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 11 months ago

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a bizarre ring of material around the magnetic remains of a star that blasted to smithereens. picked by AutumnLotus 3 months ago

The tell-tale signature of the molecule methane in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet HD 189733b has been found with the Hubble Space Telescope. Under the right circumstances methane can play a key role in prebiotic chemistry – the chemical reactions considered necessary to form life as we know it. picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

Towering storms more than 100 kilometres tall have been caught punching up through Jupiter's cloud deck for the first time, thanks to a series of Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observations. The rare storms - a sign of recent turmoil on the planet - are helping scientists deduce what lies hidden beneath the clouds that shroud the solar system's largest planet. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

SRON astronomer Floris van der Tak is the first to have observed acidic particulate clouds outside of our own Milky Way galaxy. He did this by focusing the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, located on Hawaii, on two nearby Milky Way galaxies. Astronomers think that acidification inhibits the formation of stars and planets in the dust clouds. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a dusty star system being soaked with a "steamy rain" of water vapor.
DUPE picked by Neiako 12 months ago

Astronomers have used telescopes on Earth and in space to nail the precise position of a mysterious, dark object at the outer edge of our Galaxy. picked by DrNothing 1 year ago

Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures. The object, called NGC 2371, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a Sun-like star. The remnant star visible at the center of NGC 2371 is the super-hot core of the former red giant, now stripped of its outer layers. picked by AutumnLotus 6 months ago

Two galaxies perform an intricate dance in this new Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxies, containing a vast number of stars, swing past each other in a graceful performance choreographed by gravity. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

A spectacular new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope uncovers a small group of young stellar "siblings" in the southern portion of the Serpens cloud – located approximately 848 light-years away from Earth. Scientists suspect that this discovery will lead them to more clues about how these cosmic families, which contain hundreds of gravitationally bound stars, form and intera... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

By studying in great detail the 'ringing' of a planet-harbouring star, a team of astronomers using ESO's 3.6-m telescope have shown that it must have drifted away from the metal-rich Hyades cluster. This discovery has implications for theories of star and planet formation, and for the dynamics of our Milky Way. picked by AutumnLotus 4 months ago

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have compiled a large catalogue of gravitational lenses in the distant Universe. The catalogue contains a staggering 67 new gravitationally lensed images found around massive elliptical and lenticular-shaped galaxies. picked by AutumnLotus 6 months ago

Dust littered the early universe and seeded the formation of rocky planets such as the Earth. Astronomers have found 10,000 Earth masses worth of dust surrounding Cassiopeia A, the remnants of a supernova about 11,000 light-years away from our planet. The NASA Spitzer Space Telescope observations show silicates, carbon, iron oxide, aluminum oxide and other dust-forming chemicals around the blown-o... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 8 months ago

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found out the true nature of a dwarf galaxy that astronomers had for a long time identified as one of the youngest galaxies in the Universe. Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have made observations of the galaxy I Zwicky 18 which seem to indicate that it is in fact much older and much farther away than previously thought. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

A new class of cosmic object has been found by a Dutch schoolteacher, through a project which allows the public to take part in astronomy research online. Hanny Van Arkel, 25, came across the strange gaseous blob while using the Galaxy Zoo website to help classify galaxies in telescope images. picked by AutumnLotus 1 week ago

The Lovell radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory is 50 this year. As part of the celebrations Jem Finer of The Pogues and Ansuman Biswas have turned the telescope into a musical instrument which they will play as part of the First Light Festival picked by pocksucket 1 year ago

This “Firefox logo” image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope picked by buddha 4 months ago

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil – the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

Traces of a distant extrasolar planet's hazy red sunset have been detected for the first time. Astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at HD 189733b, a gaseous Jupiter-like world about 63 light-years from Earth, as it passed in front of its parent star to catch a glimpse of the planet's atmosphere. picked by AutumnLotus 8 months ago