Infinity Cosmos

  An international team of physicists, led by MIT researchers, has developed a groundbreaking method to detect small asteroids, as small as 10 meters in diameter, within the main asteroid belt. These space rocks, ranging from the size of a bus to several stadiums wide, were previously undetectable using traditional methods. The team's discovery, detailed in a paper published in Nature, could significantly improve tracking of potential asteroid impactors, aiding planetary defense efforts. The main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter, is home to millions of asteroids, but until now, scientists could only detect objects roughly a kilometer in diameter. The new detection technique, which utilizes the "shift and stack" method, is able to identify much smaller asteroids, even those far from Earth, enabling more precise orbital tracking. This breakthrough is crucial for planetary defense, allowing scientists to spot near-Earth objects that may pose a threat in the fu...

  This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the Orion Nebula (Messier 42, M42), the nearest star-forming region to Earth, located about 1,500 light-years away. A captivating new image captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers an extraordinary look into the Orion Nebula, the nearest massive star-forming region to Earth. Located just 1,500 light-years away, this nebula is visible to the naked eye below the three stars forming Orion's "belt." The region is home to hundreds of newborn stars, including two protostars featured in the image: HOPS 150 and HOPS 153. Named after the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey, conducted with ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, the protostars HOPS 150 and HOPS 153 provide key insights into the early stages of star formation. HOPS 150, visible in the upper-right corner of the image, is a binary star system, with two young stars orbiting one another. These protostars are surrounded by small dusty disks, where material from th...

  Radio images of 1ES 1927+654 reveal emerging plasma jets erupting from the galaxy’s central black hole, first detected in February 2024 after a strong radio flare, with structures expanding about half a light-year from the center. International teams of astronomers monitoring a supermassive black hole in the heart of a distant galaxy have discovered previously unseen features using data from NASA missions and other observatories. These findings, including a high-speed plasma jet and rapid X-ray fluctuations, provide new insights into the behavior of black holes and their accretion processes. The black hole, located in the galaxy 1ES 1927+654 about 270 million light-years away in the constellation Draco, has a mass approximately 1.4 million times that of the Sun. The black hole began exhibiting unusual activity in 2018 with an optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray outburst, which sparked continuous monitoring by various teams, including one led by Eileen Meyer, an associate professor at...

  In honor of Edwin Hubble's discovery of the Cepheid variable star V1 in the Andromeda galaxy 100 years ago, astronomers partnered with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) to track its light curve over six months. This data allowed the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the star at its brightest and dimmest, confirming that Andromeda lies far outside the Milky Way and marking a pivotal step in our understanding of the expanding universe. For humanity, the Sun is the most important star in the universe. But far beyond it, tucked within the Andromeda galaxy, lies the second-most crucial star in human history. Known as V1, this faint, flickering star is located 2.2 million light-years away and is only 1/100,000th as bright as the faintest star visible to the naked eye. Despite its inconspicuous nature, V1 holds a profound significance in our understanding of the cosmos. A century ago, Edwin Hubble’s discovery of V1, an unassuming Cepheid variable star, changed ...

  NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of coronal loops above an active region on the Sun in mid-January 2012, using the 171 angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. For decades, scientists have struggled to predict solar flares—intense bursts of light on the Sun that can send a cascade of charged particles across the solar system. However, recent findings using NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory may provide a breakthrough in forecasting these powerful events, offering crucial protection for astronauts and technological infrastructure. A team of scientists, led by heliophysicist Emily Mason from Predictive Sciences Inc. in San Diego, California, has identified specific flickering loops in the solar atmosphere, or corona, that seem to signal when the Sun is about to unleash a large flare. These "warning signs" could offer NASA and other space organizations the ability to better safeguard astronauts and both space and ground-based technologies from the ...

A groundbreaking study has produced the first 3D maps of molecular clouds in the heart of the Milky Way, offering new insights into star formation in one of the most extreme environments of our galaxy. Researchers utilized decades of data from a variety of telescopes, including the Submillimeter Array, the Herschel Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, to map these clouds in three dimensions. These molecular clouds, where new stars are born, lie near Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the Milky Way's supermassive black hole. The center of the galaxy is a turbulent region with gas densities and temperatures significantly higher than the rest of the galaxy, making it a challenging environment for study. In this region, inflowing gas occasionally gets drawn into Sgr A*, where it emits powerful X-ray flares that travel outward and interact with surrounding molecular clouds. Using a novel X-ray tomography technique, the researchers were able to genera...

The Evolution of a "Blue Lurker" Star in a Triple System. Panel 1: A triple star system with two Sun-like stars in a close orbit, and a third star in a wider orbit. Panel 2: The close pair spirals together and merges into a single, more massive star. Panel 3: The merged star becomes a giant, expanding and transferring material to the outer companion, causing it to grow and spin faster. Panels 4-5: The central star burns out, forming a white dwarf, while the outer companion spirals inward, forming a tighter binary system. Panel 6: The surviving companion, a "blue lurker," appears like a normal Sun-like star but with subtle signs of its turbulent past: it’s slightly brighter, bluer, and spins rapidly. The name "blue lurker" might evoke images of a shadowy villain in a superhero tale, but in reality, it refers to a rare and fascinating class of star. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope recently delved into this cosmic mystery by studying the open star cluster M...

A team of astronomers analyzed James Webb Space Telescope data from multiple surveys to compile one of the largest samples of “little red dots,” discovering that these mysterious objects appear in abundance around 600 million years after the Big Bang and rapidly decline by 1.5 billion years. Since its debut in December 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided an unprecedented view of the universe, including the discovery of mysterious red objects dubbed "little red dots" (LRDs). These objects, abundant yet enigmatic, have perplexed scientists who are trying to understand their composition, the reason for their red hues, and what they reveal about the early universe. A team of astronomers recently compiled one of the largest samples of these LRDs to date, all of which existed within the first 1.5 billion years following the Big Bang. They found that many of the LRDs seem to harbor growing supermassive black holes, marking a potential early stage in black hole devel...

Quasar J0742+2704, discovered in 2020 to have a newborn jet, caught astronomers' attention due to its surprising spiral shape, as quasars with jets are typically elliptical. This suggests that quasar jets may not require major galaxy mergers to form, as previously thought, and could instead be triggered by less dramatic galaxy interactions. The night sky has always been a vital tool for navigation, from ancient ocean voyages to today’s reliance on GPS. Now, beyond the stars, the United States Navy is turning to quasars as celestial beacons. These distant galaxies, which host supermassive black holes surrounded by fiery gas disks and powerful material jets, offer potential for navigation in deep space. A new discovery by aspiring naval officer Olivia Achenbach of the United States Naval Academy is shedding light on the quasar J0742+2704, revealing unexpected features that challenge current astronomical understanding. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during a four-week interns...

  Two mid-infrared images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveal carbon-rich dust moving at nearly 1% the speed of light in the Wolf-Rayet 140 system, located 5,000 light-years away in the Milky Way, with significant changes observed over 14 months. Astronomers have long sought to understand how essential elements like carbon spread across the universe. Now, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided groundbreaking observations of one source of carbon-rich dust in our galaxy. The telescope recently observed Wolf-Rayet 140, a binary star system where two massive stars follow an elongated orbit. As these stars swing past one another, their stellar winds collide, compressing material and creating carbon-rich dust. Webb’s detailed observations reveal 17 distinct dust shells expanding into space. These shells, visible in mid-infrared light, move outward at speeds exceeding 1,600 miles per second (2,600 kilometers per second)—almost 1% the speed of light. Emma Lieb, a doctoral...

This Hubble Telescope image holds an array of stars and galaxies.   A captivating new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers a glimpse into the vast universe, showcasing a small patch of sky in the constellation Hydra. This image features a remarkable variety of objects, ranging from nearby stars in our Milky Way galaxy to distant galaxies over 600 million light-years away. The stars nearest to us, within our galaxy, are easily identifiable by their diffraction spikes, which result from the way Hubble’s secondary mirror interacts with light from these bright sources. One such star, positioned at the edge of a striking bluish galaxy, is located just 3,230 light-years away, as confirmed by ESA's Gaia space observatory. Behind this star lies LEDA 803211, a galaxy 622 million light-years away, where its bright galactic nucleus and star clusters are clearly visible. Most of the more distant galaxies in the image appear as star-like points with no discernible structure, di...

This map of Earth in 2024 shows global surface temperature anomalies, with normal temperatures in white, higher-than-normal in red and orange, and lower-than-normal in blue. An animated version, showing changes since 1880, is available for download from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio:  https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5450 . NASA scientists have confirmed that Earth's average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest ever recorded. The global temperatures surged by 2.30°F (1.28°C) above the 20th-century baseline (1951-1980), surpassing the previous record set in 2023. This record-breaking year follows an unprecedented streak of 15 consecutive months of temperature highs, from June 2023 through August 2024. "Once again, the temperature record has been shattered — 2024 was the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. He emphasized the urgent need to understand the changing climate, especially as wildfires rage across ...

SRIHARIKOTA, India - The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has marked a significant chapter in its space exploration narrative with the successful launch of the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission aboard the PSLV-C60 rocket. Launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on December 30, 2024, SpaDeX is designed to demonstrate India's capabilities in orbital docking, a critical technology for future space endeavors. The mission involves two small spacecraft, named SDX01 (Chaser) and SDX02 (Target), each weighing 220 kg, aimed at showcasing autonomous docking in space. This technology is pivotal for operations like satellite servicing, construction of space stations, and interplanetary missions. The successful placement of these spacecraft into a 470 km circular orbit marks the beginning of a series of complex maneuvers leading to the actual docking event, which is scheduled for January 7, 2025. ISRO Chairman S. Somanath praised the team's efforts, stat...

SRIHARIKOTA, India - The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has marked a significant chapter in its space exploration narrative with the successful launch of the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission aboard the PSLV-C60 rocket. Launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on December 30, 2024, SpaDeX is designed to demonstrate India's capabilities in orbital docking, a critical technology for future space endeavors. The mission involves two small spacecraft, named SDX01 (Chaser) and SDX02 (Target), each weighing 220 kg, aimed at showcasing autonomous docking in space. This technology is pivotal for operations like satellite servicing, construction of space stations, and interplanetary missions. The successful placement of these spacecraft into a 470 km circular orbit marks the beginning of a series of complex maneuvers leading to the actual docking event, which is scheduled for January 7, 2025. ISRO Chairman S. Somanath praised the team's efforts, stat...

  The NOAA's Solar Ultraviolet Imager captured this image of a solar flare on Jan. 3, with the bright flash in the upper left, showing hot material in extreme ultraviolet light colorized in red and gold. The Sun unleashed a significant flare, peaking at 6:39 a.m. ET on Friday, Jan. 3, with the eruption captured by NOAA's Solar Ultraviolet Imager aboard the GOES-East satellite. Solar flares like this are intense bursts of energy, capable of interfering with communication systems, power grids, navigation signals, and even posing threats to spacecraft and astronauts. This particular flare has been classified as an X1.2 flare. X-class flares are the most powerful, with the number indicating the intensity. Data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a key resource for understanding solar phenomena, is temporarily unavailable due to flooding at the data center that houses its information. For more details on how this flare might impact Earth’s space weather, the public can acces...