Astronomy

Radio astronomy opens a window onto the invisible universe. While our eyes can detect visible light, countless objects in space emit radiation at much longer wavelengths, in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Where […]

Weather forecasting is a powerful tool. During hurricane season, for instance, meteorologists create computer simulations to forecast how these destructive storms form and where they might travel, which helps prevent damage to coastal communities. When […]

Betelgeuse, the brilliant red star marking Orion’s shoulder, has long been suspected of harboring a secret. I have to confess, Betelgeuse holds a special place in my heart as the first star I ever looked […]

When galaxies collide, it’s not a gentle affair, but it does take millions of years. Over this time, the two massive star systems slowly merge together, their gravitational pull drawing them closer. At the heart […]

Dark matter, the substance that makes up about 27% of the universe, could potentially be detected as a red or blue light “fingerprint,” new research shows. The research is published in the journal Physics Letters […]

Using various space telescopes, an international team of astronomers have observed a newly detected very faint X-ray transient designated 4XMM J174610.7–290020. Results of the observational campaign, published October 2 on the arXiv pre-print server, yield […]

Using CO (J=1–0) molecular line data obtained from the 13.7-meter millimeter-wave telescope at the Purple Mountain Observatory’s Delingha Observatory, Sun Mingke, a Ph.D. student from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences […]

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Circinus galaxy is being fed with gaseous material by two spiral arms, according to an international team of researchers led by Wout Goesaert (Leiden University, the […]

The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has been something of a mystery ever since it graced our solar system. From all outward appearances, the object appears to be a comet that originated in another star system and […]

According to a new Physical Review Letters study, black holes could help solve the dark matter mystery. The shadowy regions in black hole images captured by the Event Horizon Telescope can act as ultra-sensitive detectors […]