When it comes to hunting for the explosive deaths of massive stars in the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is quite the cosmic detective. This celestial Sherlock Holmes has found evidence of 80 new early supernovas in a patch of sky as wide as a grain of rice held at arm’s length. […]
When we picture what’s in deep space, we often think of static images — colorful composites of distant objects like nebulas and galaxies, frozen in time. The reality is that everything is moving, and it’s moving fast. But given the vast distances involved, it’s hard for us to see that motion. NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, […]
While examining a nearby supernova with NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray space telescope, an effort meant to discover how these stellar explosions ignite charged particles called cosmic rays, scientists have uncovered a bigger mystery. The team found the supernova, designated SN 2023ixf, to be completely lacking the gamma-ray emissions that should be present when cosmic ray particles […]
In the year 1181, an extraordinarily bright supernova lit up the night sky like a firework for an incredible 185 consecutive days. Astronomers have since located its remnants within the constellation Cassiopeia and imaged it — appropriately, it looks like a giant firework. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released this new composite image of SNR 1181 that combines […]
By Ari Rabinovitch REHOVOT, Israel (Reuters) – About 20 million years ago, in a galaxy not so far away, a large star exploded and sent elements representing the building blocks of life racing through space. About a year ago, by chance, as the light it emitted reached Earth, a team of scientists in Israel observed […]
In the political universe that is Washington, D.C., Kyrsten Sinema was a supernova — a solar splash of vibrant color and enormous energy. She served only one term in the United States Senate, but what a term. She put herself at the vital core of virtually every important policy debate in Washington — infrastructure, guns, […]
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have ended a nearly decade-long game of celestial hide-and-seek after they discovered a neutron star in the wreckage of a stellar explosion. Supernova 1987A represents the remains of an exploded star that once had a mass around 8 to 10 times that of the sun. It is […]
Scientists have confirmed what became of a star that exploded in a stunning supernova visible to Earth more than three decades ago: It morphed into a neutron star, one of the oddest objects in the universe. In 1987, a star in a nearby galaxy went supernova and its fiery demise was detected in Earth’s nighttime […]
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When a star up to 20 times the mass of our sun exploded in a nearby galaxy, the blast was so violent that it was visible to the naked eye from Earth’s southern hemisphere for weeks in 1987. Scientists have finally identified the progeny of that supernova – an […]
If aliens are synchronizing their signals with light coming from supernova 1987A, then the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is on the case. Scientists with the institution say they may be able to find such signals by looking for them on what’s called the “SETI Ellipsoid.” About 167,600 years ago, a blue supergiant star exploded […]
A new Hubble Space Telescope image shows the tiny galaxy UGC 5189A, located about 150 million light-years away in the constellation Leo, in stunning detail. The space telescope, which has been observing the universe in infrared since 1990, has been studying this galaxy since 2010, with scientists using this investigation to learn more about a […]
Astronomers have discovered the stellar “missing link” that directly connects a massive star’s death to the birth of a black hole or a neutron star. Two teams of scientists made the discovery using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the New Technology Telescope (NTT) to look at supernova wreckage designated SN 2022jli, which was discovered […]