astronomy

NASA has confirmed that there has been no change to the existing 12-star signs following social media rumors that another zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, had been added, the Independent reported. The rumor of a new zodiac sign has resurfaced several times on social media in the past few years. NASA initially acknowledged it in 2016 but […]

Astronomers are amazed at the discovery that a black hole in space is firing out jets of material at over 99 percent the speed of light, according to Universe Today. The black hole in question is at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy and accordingly has the name M87*. It is about 6.5 billion […]

Scientists have been recently confounded by the latest astrophysical mystery after discovering that more than 100 stars in space have disappeared within the past 70 years, reports Air & Space Magazine. The discovery was made by a group from the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Sweden and was led by Beatriz Villarroel. The group, […]

Though black holes are constantly offering scientists new space discoveries, astrophysicists are reeling after finding the largest black hole ever measured, per Astronomy. It was calculated as being 40 billion times the sun’s mass. It is so massive that another way to think about the size of this black hole is that it is equal […]

Black holes are known to be a mysterious and misunderstood astronomical phenomenon, but scientists are particularly baffled by the one in our very galaxy after a new study revealed new unusual behavior. According to Science Daily, the black hole in the center of our galaxy, known as Sagittarius A, or Sgr A, normally does not […]

The planet Jupiter was hit by something on Wednesday night, and the flash was so bright that an amateur astronomer caught it with his backyard telescope, CNET reports. On Wednesday night, August 7, Ethan Chappel was watching the skies when he had his telescope pointed in the right place at the right time. Specifically, it […]

In late May, a massive, nearly mile-wide asteroid paid Earth a close visit, safely passing within 3.2 million miles of our planet’s surface. Dubbed asteroid 1999 KW4, the formidable space rock measured about 0.8 miles in diameter and was accompanied by its very own moon, as reported by The Inquisitr last month. The asteroid pair […]

Jupiter and four of its brightest moons will be visible to backyard astronomers with only a pair of binoculars throughout the month of June, CNN reports. This is a rare treat as, most times, only people willing to spend the money on high-quality telescopes are able to view the celestial bodies. Jupiter is almost always […]

A team of astronomers has released the first image of a black hole, which is located in a galaxy about 55 million light years from our own Milky Way. The image is something similar to what experts believed a black hole to look like — a circle of dust and gas surrounding a black center. […]

Scientists may be on the verge of acquiring the first photos the human race has ever seen of a black hole. In a media advisory, The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration announced that there will be six concurrent press conferences around the world on April 10 to reveal its findings. According to its website, the […]

In 2018, Yale University researchers published a groundbreaking study about galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 — the first known galaxy with little or no dark matter. As NASA pointed out, the galaxy is as large as our Milky Way. The agency’s Hubble Space Telescope was subsequently used to learn more about this mysterious and unique corner of […]

While 2017 may have had people buzzing over a solar eclipse, 2019 has some astronomy events in store too, AccuWeather is reporting. The year 2019 is expected to have three supermoons, a blue moon, multiple meteor showers, and dozens of rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida. And these aren’t even considered the biggest events to […]

Brian May may be one of the greatest rock guitarists alive, but the Queen co-founder also has a doctorate in astrophysics. Now, he is combining his two loves — music and astronomy — by releasing a brand-new song about a history-making NASA spacecraft. New Horizons, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s spacecraft, will be making […]

The Earth doesn’t have just one Moon, it actually has three — possibly even more — although the two “newest” ones are made entirely of dust, the New York Post is reporting. You’ve likely believed since elementary school in the immutable and unimpeachable fact that the Earth has only one natural satellite: the Moon. That […]

There’s going to be a “blood moon” on July 27, and it’s got European space watchers excited, and for good reason: This one is expected to be one of the most impressive in a century, according to Newsweek. So when is the next blood moon that will be visible in the United States? In about […]

A Christian “prophet” is predicting that the Blood Moon that will occur in July will signal the end times, The Express is reporting. That prophet has predicted the end of the world multiple times before, however, and he’s always been wrong (or has he?). Paul Begley is an American Christian preacher who is all about […]

Astronomers are set to get a powerful boost to their capabilities of detecting exoplanets and in determining whether or not said worlds circling faraway stars are Earth-like — and they’ll be provided that boost with a powerful new detection device, a black box known as ESPRESSO. Phys.org has reported that ESPRESSO, a spectrograph whose name […]

While trying to locate ZUMA, amateur astronomer Scott Tilley accidentally discovered the first satellite NASA launched to relay images of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration mission was killed back in 2005 after the space agency lost connection with the satellite. After the controversial ZUMA launch, there has been much […]

A team of more than 200 researchers that includes Tabetha Boyajian, the Louisiana State astronomer that first detected the strangely dimming star that has become known as “Tabby’s Star,” and Jason Wright, the Penn State assistant professor who was part of the research team that originally posited that the star officially designated as KIC 8462852 […]

The asteroid known as ‘Oumuamua is the very first interstellar asteroid that has ever been observed by scientists which makes it a very special object indeed, and now a new initiative known as Project Lyra will attempt to build a probe to send to the asteroid so that astronomers can study it in much greater, […]

Spiral galaxy A1689B11 has excitingly just been confirmed by a team of astronomers as the oldest spiral galaxy ever to be discovered outside our own. This galaxy has been in existence for 11 billion years and was around just a mere 2.6 billion years after the Big Bang occurred. Even with around 100 billion galaxies […]

And still more evidence has been presented to suggest that there are not only the eight known worlds in the solar train of planets but that there exists a yet undiscovered massive world — a Planet X or Planet Nine — that orbits in the outer Solar System. Researchers at the University of Michigan constructed […]

For the very first time, the strange night side of Venus has been revealed after scientists employed the European Space Agency’s Venus Express to analyze the upper cloud patterns and wind on the hidden side of Venus. As far as planets go, Venus is an odd one. Temperatures routinely reach close to 900 degrees Fahrenheit […]

We are being warned constantly that the next catastrophic asteroid or comet strike could come at any time, but a new study indicates that there are about 10 times fewer “city killer” asteroids hurtling through space than had been previously estimated. Still, the actual number of potentially deadly Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) is still astronomically high. […]

Two astronomers from Spain have announced that their research has uncovered evidence that corroborates the hypothesis of a potential massive Planet Nine orbiting in the outer Solar System. Using an analysis of the nodes, the two points where a celestial body crosses the plane of said Solar System, the astronomers found that the data supported […]

There has been a considerable discussion concerning red dwarf stars and the chances that their planetary trains may be the best places to look when searching for alien life. However, some researchers are now questioning that this may be so, given that red dwarfs are extremely volatile at an early stage in their development, perhaps […]

The “Wow!” signal has puzzled scientists for almost 40 years as to what could have produced such a strong signal from space, and now a research team from the Center of Planetary Science is certain that they have the answer: It was a comet. As reported by Phys.org, the team of researchers, led by Antonio […]

When it comes to first contact with intelligent aliens, mathematics just might be a shared language that humans and said aliens could use to communicate with each other, according to some researchers. Establishing common ground to communicate with an intelligent extraterrestrial species may prove to be rather difficult, but some researchers, like the University of […]

Astronomers running a model of a giant ringed planet around a star have found that such a massive world could very likely be the answer to the bizarre dimming effect occurring with KIC 8462852 (nicknamed Tabby’s Star), otherwise known as the “alien megastructure” star. This star has been the subject of considerable attention since its […]

August 15 will mark 40 years since the now famous “Wow!” signal, the first definitive — and as yet unexplained — detected transmission from outer space, was received by a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) listening post. And after those 40 years, not only can it not be explained, but the “Wow!” signal also cannot […]

NASA is set to announce its first ever mission to “touch the Sun” this Wednesday. According to Science Alert, NASA is planning to launch a probe that aims to provide us data that will help us answer some of the mysteries surrounding the star closest to us. Named “The Solar Probe Plus,” the mission will […]

A Georgia scientist believes he has figured out how to detect alien civilizations — especially advanced civilizations with the capability of building massive energy-absorbing megastructures around stellar objects. In fact, he says that current technology would suffice in searching out nearby (relatively speaking) stellar bodies for these alien megastructures. Still, the search would not be […]

The odd star located in the Cygnus constellation known as Tabby’s Star — the one that could be host to an “alien megastructure” — has begun to dim again and a “call to action” has been sent out by the star’s namesake herself, astronomer Tabetha Boyajian. Both she and Jason Wright, a Penn State Associate […]

Astronomers have used NASA data to hunt down what just might be a conjoining of two black holes into a supermassive black hole, a massive entity that has been propelled across a faraway galaxy just as two galaxies merge into one larger galactic union of stars. Scientists are referring to the supermassive black hole as […]

A new study by a San Francisco State University astronomer has found that exomoons cannot exist in the recently discovered TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. So even though the hunt for exomoons is on (because whosoever discovers one will be the first to do so), calculations indicate that there is no reason to even bother looking for […]

A black hole is perhaps the most fascinating object in existence. Astronomers suspect that black holes are closely tied to the structure and formation of galaxies. In fact, it’s thought that an enormous black hole exists at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, influencing its size and growth. It should be noted that […]

A new study has concluded that in the search for habitable planets, most found to be suitable for life will likely be watery worlds with very little or no dry land. In fact, most habitable planets will have less than 10 percent land mass. By constructing a statistical model to predict the quantitative division between […]

A habitable planet orbiting in a binary star system like the desert planet Tatooine in the science fiction adventure film Star Wars could actually exist, a new study reveals. In fact, an Earth-sized planet with two parent stars could very well be habitable if it orbits at just the right distance from each of the […]

In just a few days, a monstrously large, 2,000-foot (650-meter) asteroid will hurtle past the Earth in a fly-by event that, at present, poses no real threat to the planet. And once it passes, the asteroid will not come anywhere near as close to the Earth again for another 400 years. But it isn’t the […]

Scientists studying the conditions on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have found that the particles covering much of its surface are electrically charged. Not only that, but the particles tend to clump together and become immovable dunes climbing to as high as 300 feet. Science Daily reported this week that Titan, which has displayed a strange […]

While astronomers have not been able to gaze into a black hole, this is set to change as the Event Horizon Telescope is now set to attempt to capture the very first image of the event horizon of a black hole. The event horizon is the area of the black hole from which astronomers believe […]

Researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered evidence of a trio of runaway stars in the Orion Nebula that once had a common origin, but, due to an actual battle between stars, forces conspired to expel three of the competing stars and send them flying off through space in various directions. The struggle between […]

Are alien spaceships blasting their way through distant galaxies using massive radio bursts? As reported by Science Alert, some scientists based at Harvard University seem to think it might be possible. But if they’re right, just how does this work and what would it mean? Fast Radio Bursts One of the most unusual phenomena physicists […]

A previously undetected asteroid passed by Earth on Thursday, hurtling through the ring of satellites that encircle the planet and traveling onward, according to NASA. The space agency said that the asteroid, designated 2017 EA, had been detected only six hours before it whizzed past the planet. Fortunately (“luckily” was how the Daily Mail phrased […]

The red dwarf star Trappist-1 that shot to fame just last week because NASA had discovered that it was the parent star of at least seven planets, all Earth-sized with three in the habitable zone, may have already received an upgrade to the number of planets circling the star that could have the potential for […]

Two asteroids out beyond Neptune and moving in nearly identical orbits may have been part of a binary system at one time, their little system disrupted by some large object that scientists say could have been Planet 9. The Daily Mail reported this week that a new study suggests that there is reason to believe […]

NASA will be making a “major announcement” later today, Wednesday, February 22, and according to the agency, the information it will be making public will have something to do with exoplanets. NASA has been very mysterious and tight-lipped about the pending announcement, which is slated to take place at 1:00 p.m. EST (6:00 p.m. GMT) […]

A new study reveals that scientists believe there are 100 planets which have the potential to harbor alien life. This even includes one planet which is found in a star system which is the fourth-closest to our sun. While these 100 new exoplanets are not confirmed at this time to actually contain alien life, 20-years […]

Astronomers have known that white dwarf pulsars have existed for at least a half-century, but it wasn’t until recently that scientists actually discovered a true white dwarf pulsar, pushing the theoretical into the actual. And the white dwarf pulsar exists in a binary star system with a red dwarf, making the discovery a bit more […]

Ever thought that there should be some sort of instrument, apparatus, or telescope pointed at the sky solely for the purpose of detecting exoplanets? Surely, with all the resources and technology available, astronomers could — with adequate funding, of course — make this happen. Well, they have. A dedicated exoplanet imager, a telescope instrument whose […]