Space and astronomy news
Supermassive black holes can have trillions of times more mass than the Sun, only exist in specific locations, and could number in the trillions. How can objects like that be hiding? They’re shielded from our view by thick columns of gas and dust.
However, astronomers are developing a way to find them: by looking for donuts that glow in the infrared.
Continue reading “About a Third of Supermassive Black Holes are Hiding”
Water is the essence of life. Every living thing on Earth contains water within it. The Earth is rich with life because it is rich with water. This fundamental connection between water and life is partly due to water’s extraordinary properties, but part of it is due to the fact that water is one of the most abundant molecules in the Universe. Made from one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen, its structure is simple and strong. The hydrogen comes from the primordial fire of the Big Bang and is by far the most common element. Oxygen is created in the cores of large stars, along with carbon and nitrogen, as part of the CNO fusion cycle.
Continue reading “The First Supernovae Flooded the Early Universe With Water”
There’s plenty of action at the center of the galaxy, where a supermassive black hole (SMBH) known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) literally holds the galaxy together. Part of that action is the creation of gigantic flares from Sgr A*, which can give off energy equivalent to 10 times the Sun’s annual energy output. However, scientists have been missing a key feature of these flares for decades – what they look like in the mid-infrared range. But now, a team led by researchers at Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has published a paper that details what a flare looks like in those frequencies for the first time.
Continue reading “Astronomers See Flares Coming from the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole”
A tiny asteroid loitering in a near-Earth orbit for a few months last year may have an intriguing origin on our Moon. Its characteristics led scientists to ask: is it a chip off the old lunar block, making a pass by Earth for a visit?
Continue reading “Earth’s Temporary Moon Might Have Come from THE Moon”
A fuzzy form of dark matter may clump up to become the cores of galaxies, according to new research.
Continue reading “Galaxy Cores May be Giant Fuzzy Dark Stars”
After the Big Bang came the Dark Ages, a period lasting hundreds of millions of years when the universe was largely without light. It ended in the epoch of reionization when neutral hydrogen atoms became charged for the first time and the first generation of stars started to form. The question that has perplexed astronomers is what caused the first hydrogen atoms to charge. A team of researchers have observed an early quasar that pumped out enormous amounts of x-ray radiation helping to drive the reionization.
When a new space telescope is launched, it’s designed to address specific issues in astronomy and provide critical answers to important questions. The JWST was built with four overarching science goals in mind. However, when anticipating new telescopes, astronomers are quick to point out that they’re also excited by the unexpected discoveries that new telescopes make.
There has been no shortage of unexpected discoveries regarding the JWST, especially regarding the very early Universe.
Continue reading “Webb Provides an Explanation for “Little Red Dots””
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have seen the Ring Nebula. It’s a favourite amongst stargazers around the globe and is surely one of the most well known objects in the night sky. The remains of a Sun-like star, its outer layers have drifted out into space leaving behind a the stellar corpse, a white dwarf. It looks like a giant smoke ring in the sky but what is its true shape? A team of astronomers have mapped carbon monoxide that surrounds the nebula and built a 3D model to reveal its shape.
Climate scientists must fear sounding like a broken record when discussing new record temperatures yearly. But once again, last year was the hottest one ever recorded, according to a new study by NASA scientists.
Continue reading “It’s Official, 2024 Was the Hottest Year on Record”
Carbon-rich cosmic dust comes from different sources and spreads out into space, where it’s necessary for life and for the formation of rocky planets like ours. When astronomers aim their telescopes at objects in the sky, they often have to contend with this cosmic dust that obscures their targets and confounds their observations.
One reason the JWST was built is to see through some of this dust with its infrared vision and unlock new insights into astrophysical processes. In new work, the JWST was tasked with observing the dust itself.
Continue reading “The Webb Shows Us Where Cosmic Dust Comes From”