Astronomy

Astronomy

Part of a lost, ancient star catalog has now been found

Greek astronomer Hipparchus may be the first to try to precisely map the stars. His lost work turned up on parchment that had been erased and reused.

Astronomy

Astronomers have found the closest known black hole to Earth

Discovered by how it pushes around a companion star, the black hole is about 1,500 light-years away and roughly 10 times the mass of the sun.

Astronomy

Meet the BOAT, the brightest gamma-ray burst of all time

Probably triggered by a supernova in a remote galaxy, the burst detected on October 9 could challenge theories about these brilliant blasts.

Earth

Particles from space provide a new look inside cyclones

Cosmic rays that smash into the atmosphere make muons that are sensitive to changing air pressure inside storms.

Astronomy

Most stars may have much more time to form planets than previously thought

Planet-making disks may survive around most young stars for 5 million to 10 million years — more than double a previous estimate.

Astronomy

For the first time, astronomers saw dust in space being pushed by starlight

Images collected over 16 years reveal that dust expelled from a well-known binary star system is hurried on its way by light from those stars.

Astronomy

A 3-D model of the Cat’s Eye nebula shows rings sculpted by jets

The Cat’s Eye is one of the most complex nebulae known. A 3-D reconstruction reveals the source of some of that complexity.

Astronomy

The James Webb Space Telescope spied the earliest born stars yet seen

The stars, found in the first released science image from the James Webb Space Telescope, probably winked into existence about 13 billion years ago.

Astronomy

A protogalaxy in the Milky Way may be our galaxy’s original nucleus

Millions of ancient stars spanning about 18,000 light-years at the Milky Way’s heart are the kernel around which the galaxy grew, researchers say.

Planetary Science

Passing through the Milky Way’s arms may have helped form Earth’s solid ground

Barrages of comets stirred up by the early solar system’s journey around the center of the galaxy could explain the timing of ancient rock formation.

Astronomy

Here’s the James Webb telescope’s first direct image of an exoplanet

Along with spying its first exoplanet, the James Webb telescope got its first direct spectrum of an object orbiting a star in another solar system.

Astronomy

The James Webb telescope spotted CO₂ in an exoplanet’s atmosphere

The first definitive detection of the gas on a world in another solar system paves the way for detections in planets that are more Earthlike.