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Astronomy

All articles tagged with #astronomy

Webb’s Red Dots Point to Black Hole Feeding Inside Gas Clouds
space4 hours ago

Webb’s Red Dots Point to Black Hole Feeding Inside Gas Clouds

JWST has identified over 300 mysterious red-tinted ‘little red dots’ whose origin remains unknown. A new Chandra X-ray Observatory paper reports that one LRD, 3DHST-AEGIS-12014, emits X-rays, aligning with the idea that some LRDs are a transient phase in which a supermassive black hole accretes material from a surrounding gas cloud; X-rays can escape during this process, making the dot visible. If this is correct, these dots should fade as the cloud is consumed, and continued observations including ongoing support for Chandra will be needed to catch such a transition.

via Hackaday|
#astronomy#black-holes#chandra-x-ray-observatory
Moon Close to Spica: A Blue-White Star in May's Sky
space20 hours ago

Moon Close to Spica: A Blue-White Star in May's Sky

On May 26, the waxing Moon (about 83% illuminated) will pass near Spica, the blue-white star in Virgo. Spica is a binary giant-star system with a combined luminosity of more than 12,000 suns. The Moon will be roughly 40° high at sunset and drift toward Spica through the night, setting on May 27; the week also features a Blue Moon later in the month.

via Space|
#astronomy#blue-moon#moon
Arecibo Message: A 25,000-Year Beacon to the Cosmos
space23 hours ago

Arecibo Message: A 25,000-Year Beacon to the Cosmos

Broadcast in 1974, the Arecibo message was aimed at the M13 globular cluster about 25,000 light-years away and encoded 1679 bits in a 23-by-73 grid to reveal numbers, DNA components, a DNA helix, a human figure, a solar-system map with Earth highlighted, and the transmitter dish. Designed as a demonstration rather than a dialogue, its earliest possible reply would not reach Earth for roughly 25,000 years, with any response arriving no sooner than about 52,000 CE.

via Space Daily|
#arecibo#astronomy#communication
Voyager 1 nears a light-day from Earth, marking humanity’s farthest ongoing beacon
space1 day ago

Voyager 1 nears a light-day from Earth, marking humanity’s farthest ongoing beacon

NASA’s Voyager 1 is set to reach exactly one light-day from Earth in November 2026, about 25.9 billion kilometers away, continuing to send science data despite aging power and limited instruments. It has already crossed the termination shock and heliopause into the interstellar medium, but remains far from the Solar System’s edge; by around 2036 it could become undetectable, after which it will drift through the Milky Way for eons as a relic of humanity’s first grand interstellar-leaning probes.

via BBC Sky at Night Magazine|
#astronomy#interstellar-medium#solar-system
Cosmic Recycling: Heavier Black Holes Form From Repeated Mergers
science2 days ago

Cosmic Recycling: Heavier Black Holes Form From Repeated Mergers

An analysis of 153 black-hole mergers via gravitational waves reveals two populations: lighter black holes up to ~40 solar masses with spins aligned from stellar collapse, and heavier black holes above ~45 solar masses with chaotic spins, indicating they are second-generation products from prior mergers. This provides evidence that the heaviest black holes are created by repeated collisions in dense stellar environments rather than direct collapse from single stars.

via WIRED|
#astronomy#black-holes#gravitational-waves
Hubble's Blank-Sky Gamble Unveils a Cosmic Forest of Galaxies
space2 days ago

Hubble's Blank-Sky Gamble Unveils a Cosmic Forest of Galaxies

In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope stared for ten days at a deliberately empty patch of sky in Ursa Major, assembling 342 exposures and over 100 hours of data to produce the Deep Field image. Despite initial resistance and Hubble’s repair history, the image revealed roughly 3,000 faint, distant galaxies, supporting a picture of galaxy formation through mergers and growth. The data were released openly, catalyzing a standard approach and leading to even deeper fields with Hubble and, later, the James Webb Space Telescope.

via Space Daily|
#astronomy#deep-field#galaxies
High-School AI Maps the Infrared Sky, Flagging 1.5 Million Hidden Cosmic Signals
science3 days ago

High-School AI Maps the Infrared Sky, Flagging 1.5 Million Hidden Cosmic Signals

Seventeen-year-old Matteo Paz, mentored by Caltech researchers, built VARnet to scan NASA’s NEOWISE infrared sky data and identify 1.5 million variable-object candidates. The pipeline processes each source in under 53 microseconds and could yield a full infrared variability catalog once follow-up work confirms the objects, with implications for time-domain astronomy; Paz later won a top national science prize for the achievement.

via Indian Defence Review|
#artificial-intelligence#astronomy#nasa
JWST spots wind-driven clouds cycling around a hot exoplanet 690 light-years away
astronomy4 days ago

JWST spots wind-driven clouds cycling around a hot exoplanet 690 light-years away

The James Webb Space Telescope detected phase‑dependent cloud formation on the hot exoplanet WASP‑94 A b during transit, revealing thick clouds on the night side that form and dissipate as winds move them onto the day side; the clouds are likely mineral droplets due to dayside temperatures around 1,600 K, offering new insight into how exoplanetary atmospheres weather and rotate.

via Nature|
#astronomy#atmospheres#clouds
TESS Unveils Its Most Complete All-Sky Map of Exoplanets Yet
space4 days ago

TESS Unveils Its Most Complete All-Sky Map of Exoplanets Yet

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) released its most complete all-sky mosaic, assembled from 96 sectors observed between 2018 and September 2025, mapping about 6,000 potential exoplanets (roughly 679 confirmed and 5,165 candidates). The mosaic highlights the diversity of worlds found, including a recently identified system with a super‑Earth and a tilted, eccentric companion and evidence of planet–planet collisions, marking the conclusion of TESS's second mission extension in Sept 2025.

via Space|
#all-sky#astronomy#exoplanets
Laser Ranging Confirms Moon’s Inch-by-Inch Retreat from Earth
science5 days ago

Laser Ranging Confirms Moon’s Inch-by-Inch Retreat from Earth

Scientists confirm the Moon is slowly moving away from Earth at about 1.5 inches per year. Laser-ranging measurements to lunar mirrors show the average distance of roughly 239,000 miles, with small variations as the Moon’s orbit drifts outward due to tidal forces that transfer Earth's rotational energy to the Moon. This gradual recession has lengthened Earth’s days over billions of years and affects tides; in the long term it will reduce the frequency of total solar eclipses, with some estimates suggesting the last such eclipse could occur about 600 million years from now. The Moon formed around 4.5 billion years ago after a colossal impact, and its ongoing drift reflects the long-term evolution of the Earth–Moon system.

via The Daily Galaxy|
#astronomy#earth#moon
Rare Sunset Show: Moon Aligns with Jupiter Tonight
space5 days ago

Rare Sunset Show: Moon Aligns with Jupiter Tonight

On May 20, 2026, a rare western-sky pairing brings the waxing crescent Moon into close view with Jupiter after sunset, with Venus also visible near the horizon; a small telescope can reveal Jupiter's cloud bands and its four Galilean moons, while the Moon's craters line up along the terminator. Timings are location-dependent, so check local sunset guides—nearly in the northeastern U.S. Venus sets about 2.5 hours after sunset, followed by Jupiter, with the Moon visible until around midnight.

via The Daily Galaxy|
#astronomy#jupiter#moon