This artist’s concept illustrates early Mars with liquid water (blue areas) on its surface, showcasing ancient features like valleys and deltas. Scientists believe Mars once had a denser, warmer atmosphere that allowed for rivers and lakes. However, as the planet cooled and lost its magnetic field, solar winds eroded much of its atmosphere, transforming […]
Category: Science News
Strong Solar Flare Erupts from the Sun, Posing Risks to Earth.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare—visible as a bright flash in the lower right—on October 7, 2024. The image highlights extremely hot material in flares using colorized extreme ultraviolet light in teal. On October 7, 2024, at 3:13 p.m. ET, the Sun unleashed a powerful solar flare classified as […]
Westerlund 1: A Stellar Laboratory Unveiled by Webb.
The open cluster Westerlund 1, featured as the Webb Picture of the Month, is located approximately 12,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar). Discovered in 1961 by Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund, this cluster resides behind a vast interstellar cloud of gas and dust, making it a prime site for studying extreme […]
NASA’s TESS Discovers Record-Breaking Triple Star System.
This artist’s concept depicts the tight orbits of the three stars in TIC 290061484, fitting within a space smaller than Mercury’s orbit if placed at the center of our solar system, with star sizes shown to scale alongside the Sun. Professional and amateur astronomers collaborated with artificial intelligence to discover an unprecedented stellar trio known […]
NASA’s Webb Uncovers Unique Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P.
An artist’s concept depicts Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1’s outgassing activity, highlighting new observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope that revealed additional jets of gas, expanding on prior findings of a jet directed toward Earth. Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: […]
Webb Researchers Uncover Lensed Supernova, Validate Hubble Constant Discrepancies.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0 reveals the magnifying effect of the foreground cluster, located 3.6 billion light-years away. The zoomed-in section shows the triply imaged supernova H0pe, highlighted with white dashed circles, due to gravitational lensing. Color coding indicates different wavelengths: blue (0.9, 1.15, 1.5 microns), green […]
An ancient Oort Cloud comet will pass by Earth for the first time in mid-October.
An ancient celestial traveler, designated C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, is set to make its first close pass by Earth in mid-October 2023. This Oort Cloud comet, discovered in 2023, is approaching the inner solar system on a highly elliptical orbit, marking a significant event in documented human history. It was identified by astronomers at China’s Tsuchinshan […]
Powerful Solar Flare Strikes Earth, Class X7.1 Recorded.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare—visible as the bright flash in the lower left—on Oct. 1, 2024, using extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the hot material in vibrant red and orange. On October 1, 2024, the Sun unleashed a significant solar flare, peaking at 6:20 p.m. ET. NASA’s Solar […]
Hubble captures a stellar nursery in the spiral galaxy IC 1954.
This image captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope showcases the spiral galaxy IC 1954, located 45 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Horologium. A captivating image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope showcases the spiral galaxy IC 1954, situated 45 million light-years away in the constellation Horologium. The galaxy features a glowing […]
Unraveling the Mysteries of M87: Hubble Discovers Nova Eruptions Near a Supermassive Black Hole Jet.
The supermassive black hole at the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 is not only known for its astonishing size—6.5 billion solar masses—but also for its breathtakingly powerful jet of plasma that shoots out into space at nearly the speed of light. This jet, reminiscent of the “Death Star” beam from Star Wars, […]
