30 of the exocomet belts, as imaged in this study, showing the extreme variation in such belts. Credit: Prof Luca Matra, Trinity College Dublin.

Exploring the Universe’s Ice Rings: The Discovery of 74 Exocomet Belts

January 19, 2025
planets parade. Credit: Stellarium

Six Planets, One Night: A Celestial Show You Can’t Miss!

January 19, 2025
Evolution of a "Blue Lurker" Star in a Triple System. Panel 1: A triple star system containing three sun-like stars. Two are very tightly orbiting. The third star has a much wider orbit. Panel 2: The close stellar pair spiral together and merge to form one more massive star. Panel 3: The merged star evolves into a giant star. As the huge photosphere expands, some of the material falls onto the outer companion, causing the companion to grow larger and its rotation rate to increase. Panels 4–5: The central merged star eventually burns out and forms a massive white dwarf, and the outer companion spirals in towards the white dwarf, leaving a binary star system with a tighter orbit. Panel 6: The surviving outer companion is much like our sun but nicknamed a "blue lurker." Although it is slightly brighter bluer than expected because of the earlier mass-transfer from the central star and is now rotating very rapidly, these features are subtle. The star could easily be mistaken for a normal sun-like star despite its exotic evolutionary history. Credit: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)

The Star That Hid in Plain Sight: Hubble’s Blue Lurker Discovery Explained

January 18, 2025
Artist’s impression of GJ 1214 b passing in front of its host star. The “transit method” allows astronomers to study an exoplanet by seeing which wavelengths of light dim when the star’s light passes through the exoplanet atmosphere. Credit: NAOJ

Discover the New Planet Everyone’s Talking About: GJ 1214 b Revealed by James Webb

January 18, 2025
An illustration of two entangled molecules which are individually trapped in magic-wavelength optical tweezers. Credit: Durham University

Hubble’s V1: The Star That Proved the Universe is Bigger Than We Imagined

January 18, 2025
In commemoration of Edwin Hubble's discovery of a Cepheid variable class star, called V1, in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy 100 years ago, astronomers partnered with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) to study the star. AAVSO observers followed V1 for six months, producing a plot, or light curve, of the rhythmic rise and fall of the star's light. Based on this data, the Hubble Space Telescope was scheduled to capture the star at its dimmest and brightest light. Edwin Hubble's observations of V1 became the critical first step in uncovering a larger, grander universe than some astronomers imagined at the time. Once dismissed as a nearby "spiral nebula" measurements of Andromeda with its embedded Cepheid star served as a stellar milepost marker. It definitively showed that Andromeda was far outside of our Milky Way. Edwin Hubble went on to measure the distances to many galaxies beyond the Milky Way by finding Cepheid variables within those levels. The velocities of those galaxies, in turn, allowed him to determine that the universe is expanding. Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Project (STScI, AURA)

How One Star in Andromeda Redefined Humanity’s Place in the Universe

January 16, 2025
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgement: Robert A. Fesen (Dartmouth College, USA) and James Long (ESA/Hubble)

See the Universe’s Secret Layers: Webb Telescope’s Latest Unforgettable Images

January 16, 2025
This artist’s impression shows CR7 a very distant galaxy discovered using ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Water in the Early Universe? The Surprising Legacy of First Stars

January 16, 2025
main) An illustration of a massive star going supernova in the early universe (inset) the supernova 2023adsv as seen by the JWST in 2022 and 2023 (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)/NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JADES Collaboration)

The Star That Shaped Galaxies: A Rare Supernova’s Stunning Story

January 15, 2025
This image of Westerlund 1, one of the most massive young super star clusters in the Milky Way, combines data from JWST’s MIRI and NIRCam instruments to reveal detailed structures within the cluster's environment. The color image reveals intricate details of gas and dust in the cluster, with longer-wavelength mid-infrared emission (red) highlighting warm dust and gas, shorter mid-infrared emission (green) tracing complex structures of cooler dust and gas, and near-infrared emission (blue) showcasing the brilliant light of young, massive stars embedded in this cluster. These observations provide important insights into how stellar winds and radiation from massive stars interact with the surrounding material, shaping the cluster's morphology and influencing its evolution. North is 15 degrees to the right of up and east is to the left. Credit: D. Capela (University of Lisbon), M. G. Guarcello (INAF-OAPA) and the EWOCS team

Galactic Fireworks Display: Massive Stars in Action at Westerlund 1

January 15, 2025
This striking image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, a powerful instrument installed on the telescope in 2009. WFC3 is responsible for many of Hubble’s most breathtaking and iconic photographs, including Pictures of the Week. Shown here, NGC 7773 is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy. A luminous bar-shaped structure cuts prominently through the galaxy's bright core, extending to the inner boundary of NGC 7773's sweeping, pinwheel-like spiral arms. Astronomers think that these bar structures emerge later in the lifetime of a galaxy, as star-forming material makes its way towards the galactic centre — younger spirals do not feature barred structures as often as older spirals do, suggesting that bars are a sign of galactic maturity. They are also thought to act as stellar nurseries, as they gleam brightly with copious numbers of youthful stars. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is thought to be a barred spiral like NGC 7773. By studying galactic specimens such as NGC 7773 throughout the Universe, researchers hope to learn more about the processes that have shaped — and continue to shape — our cosmic home.

NGC 7773: A Galactic Marvel Illuminating the Mystery of Dark Matter

January 15, 2025
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

What If Earth Had a Neighbor? Exploring a Super-Earth Between Mars and Jupiter

January 14, 2025
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