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The Search for Dark Energy Just Got Easier
Since the early 20th century, scientists and physicists have been burdened with explaining how and why the Universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate. For decades, the most widely...
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Gamma Ray Bursts Limit The Habitability of Certain Galaxies, Says Study
Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are some of the brightest, most dramatic events in the Universe. These cosmic tempests are characterized by a spectacular explosion of photons with energies 1,000,000 times...
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What Does It Mean To Be ‘Star Stuff’?
At one time or another, all science enthusiasts have heard the late Carl Sagan's infamous words: "We are made of star stuff." But what does that mean exactly? How could colossal balls of plasma,...
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End the Year with a Bang! See a Bright Supernova in Virgo
A 14th magnitude supernova discovered in the spiral galaxy NGC 4666 earlier this month has recently brightened to 11th magnitude, making it not only the second brightest supernova of the year, but an...
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Two Stars On A Death Spiral Set To Detonate As A Supernova
Two white dwarfs circle around one other, locked in a fatal tango. With an intimate orbit and a hefty combined mass, the pair is ultimately destined to collide, merge, and erupt in a titanic explosion:...
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‘Lopsided’ Supernova Could Be Responsible for Rogue Hypervelocity Stars
Hypervelocity stars have been observed traversing the Galaxy at extreme velocities (700 km/s), but the mechanisms that give rise to such phenomena are still debated. Astronomer Thomas M. Tauris argues...
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Winds of Supermassive Black Holes Can Shape Galaxy-Wide Star Formation
The combined observations from two generations of X-Ray space telescopes have now revealed a more complete picture of the nature of high-speed winds expelled from super-massive black holes. Scientist...
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As It Turns Out, We Really Are All Starstuff
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars," Carl Sagan famously said in his 1980 series...
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Andromeda and Milky Way Might Collide Sooner Than We Think
The merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy won't happen for another 4 billion years, but the recent discovery of a massive halo of hot gas around Andromeda may mean our galaxies are already...
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Adventures With Starblinker
Observational astronomy is a study in patience. Since the introduction of the telescope over four centuries ago, steely-eyed observers have watched the skies for star-like or fuzzy points of light that...
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What are the Different Kinds of Supernovae?
There are a few places in the Universe that defy comprehension. And supernovae have got to be the most extreme places you can imagine. We’re talking about a star with potentially dozens of times the...
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Nearby Supernovas Showered Earth With Iron
We all know that we are "made of star-stuff," with all of the elements necessary for the formation of planets and even life itself having originated inside generations of massive stars, which over...
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The Closest Supernova Since 1604 Is Hissing At Us
Thirty years ago, a star that went by the designation of SN 1987A collapsed spectacularly, creating a supernova that was visible from Earth. This was the largest supernova to be visible to the naked...
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A History Of Violence: Iron Found in Fossils Suggests Supernova Role In Mass...
Outer space touches us in so many ways. Meteors from ancient asteroid collisions and dust spalled from comets slam into our atmosphere every day, most of it unseen. Cosmic rays ionize the atoms in our...
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Have We Really Just Seen The Birth Of A Black Hole?
For almost half a century, scientists have subscribed to the theory that when a star comes to the end of its life-cycle, it will undergo a gravitational collapse. At this point, assuming enough mass...
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Stellar Ghosts: Understanding Our Origins
Our sky is blanketed in a sea of stellar ghosts; all potential phantoms that have been dead for millions of years and yet we don’t know it yet. That is what we will be discussing today. What happens...
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A New Prototype Telescope Proves Itself Worthy
In 2013, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) was established with the intention of building the world’s largest and most sensitive high-energy gamma ray observatory. Consisting of over 1350 scientists...
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Chance Discovery Of A Three Hour Old Supernova
Supernovae are extremely energetic and dynamic events in the universe. The brightest one we’ve ever observed was discovered in 2015 and was as bright as 570 billion Suns. Their luminosity signifies...
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Supernova Blast Wave Still Visible After 30 Years
30 years ago today, a supernova explosion was spotted in the southern hemisphere skies. The exploding star was located in the Large Magellanic Cloud — a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way – and...
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Watch Stars Orbit The Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*), is arrowed in the image made of the innermost galactic center in X-ray light by NASA’s Chandra Observatory. To the left or...
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