See The Jaw-Dropping New 83 Megapixel Photo Of The Sun Sent Back From A Spacecraft Halfway There

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter has returned an incredible 83 megapixel image of the Sun. ESA/ATG MEDIALAB

Next stop, Uranus? Icy planet tops priority list for next big NASA mission

Influential panel’s recommendation makes the ice giant a likely destination for a flagship space mission.

A US probe to Uranus (artist’s impression) is the top-priority space mission of an influential group of planetary scientists.Credit: QAI Publishing/Universal Images Group via Getty

Celebrating Hubble’s 32nd Birthday with a Galaxy Grouping

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 32nd birthday with a stunning look at an unusual close-knit collection of five galaxies, called the Hickson Compact Group 40. This snapshot reflects a special moment in their lifetimes as they fall together before they merge.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 32nd birthday with a stunning look at an unusual close-knit collection of five galaxies, called the Hickson Compact Group 40. This snapshot reflects a special moment in their lifetimes as they fall together before they merge. Credit: NASA, ESA and STScI

Giant stars undergo dramatic weight loss program

Red giants’ mass ‘stolen’ by stellar neighbours.

A new, slimmer type of red giant star has been identified by astronomers, who liken their discovery to 'finding Wally'. Only around 40 of these stars exist amid a sea of thousands in the Milky Way.

In the binary named Mira, a red giant star transfers mass to a white dwarf. © NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

China is hatching a plan to find Earth 2.0

A satellite will scour the Milky Way for exoplanets orbiting stars just like the Sun.

China is planning its first space mission to survey the skies for exoplanets similar to Kepler-186f, an Earth-size planet orbiting a distant star (artist’s impression). Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

Hey DUDE: Mysterious Death of Carbon Star Plays Out Like Six-Ring Circus

Scientists studying V Hydrae (V Hya) have witnessed the star’s mysterious death throes in unprecedented detail. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the team discovered six slowly-expanding rings and two hourglass-shaped structures caused by the high-speed ejection of matter out into space. The results of the study are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Cosmic Milestone: NASA Confirms 5,000 Exoplanets

The count of confirmed exoplanets just ticked past the 5,000 mark, representing a 30-year journey of discovery led by NASA space telescopes.

What do planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets, look like? A variety of possibilities are shown in this illustration. Scientists discovered the first exoplanets in the 1990s. As of 2022, the tally stands at just over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Liquid metal, ruby and sapphire could rain down on huge exoplanet

Hot and cold: artist's impression of the exoplanet WASP-121b and its host star. (Courtesy: NASA, ESA, and G Bacon (STSci))

First Look at an Unusual Exoplanet’s Atmosphere

AAS Nova reports on a “super-puff” exoplanet that’s nearly 15 times less dense than Jupiter.

A visualization of HIP 41378 f, a gaseous planet located 347 light-years from Earth. NASA Exoplanet Catalog

NASA’s Webb Reaches Alignment Milestone, Optics Working Successfully

Following the completion of critical mirror alignment steps, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team expects that Webb’s optical performance will be able to meet or exceed the science goals the observatory was built to achieve.

While the purpose of this image was to focus on the bright star at the center for alignment evaluation, Webb's optics and NIRCam are so sensitive that the galaxies and stars seen in the background show up. At this stage of Webb’s mirror alignment, known as “fine phasing,” each of the primary mirror segments have been adjusted to produce one unified image of the same star using only the NIRCam instrument. This image of the star, which is called 2MASS J17554042+6551277, uses a red filter to optimize visual contrast. Credits: NASA/STScI

NASA Will Find 12,519 New Alien Planets By 2024 Including ‘Dozens Similar To Earth’s Size’ Say Scientists

GETTY IMAGES

Update From The Hope Probe At Mars

The United Arab Emirates’ Hope Probe, on a wide orbit around Mars, provides views of the dynamic Red Planet.

An artist's conception of the Hope Probe in orbit around the Red Planet. Hope / MBRSC / UAE Space Agency

Webb Mirror Alignment Continues Successfully

Webb continues on its path to becoming a focused observatory. The team has successfully worked through the second and third out of seven total phases of mirror alignment. With the completion of these phases, called Segment Alignment and Image Stacking, the team will now begin making smaller adjustments to the positions of Webb’s mirrors.

This hexagonal image array captured by the NIRCam instrument shows the progress made during the Segment Alignment phase, further aligning Webb’s 18 primary mirror segments and secondary mirror using precise movements commanded from the ground. Credit: NASA/STScI

A Cosmic Draw

It is now widely accepted amongst astronomers that an important aspect of how galaxies evolve is the way they interact with one another. Galaxies can merge, collide, or brush past one another — each of which has a significant impact on their shapes and structures. As common as these interactions are thought to be in the Universe, it is rare to capture an image of two galaxies interacting in such a visibly dynamic way. This image, from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, feels incredibly three-dimensional for a piece of deep-space imagery. 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey, DOE, FNAL/DECam, CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, SDSS / Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt

The discovery of a radio galaxy of at least 5 Mpc

Joint radio-infrared view of Alcyoneus, a radio galaxy with a projected proper length of $5.0\ \rm Mpc$. We show a $2048^{\prime\prime} \times 2048^{\prime\prime}$ solid angle centred around right ascension $123.590372°$ and declination $52.402795°$. We superimpose LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) DR2 images at $144\ \rm MHz$ of two different resolutions ($6^{\prime\prime}$ for the core and jets, and $60^{\prime\prime}$ for the lobes) (orange), with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) image at $3.4\ \rm \mu m$ (blue). To highlight the radio emission, the infrared emission has been blurred to $0.5^{\prime}$ resolution.

Photons Received: Webb Sees Its First Star – 18 Times

The James Webb Space Telescope is nearing completion of the first phase of the months-long process of aligning the observatory’s primary mirror using the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.

Credit: NASA

New Planet Discovered Around Proxima Centauri, Star Nearest The Sun

A new instrument on a powerful telescope has enabled astronomers to discover another planet around our nearest stellar neighbor.

An artist's concept of Proxima d, the third candidate planet orbiting our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri. ESO / L. Calçada

Mega Comet Arriving From the Oort Cloud Is 85 Miles Wide

The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in 2031, and it’s already attracting major attention from astronomers.

Artist’s impression of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein.Image: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva (Spaceengine)

First glimpse of lone black hole delights astronomers

The invisible cosmic tourist could carry clues about supernova explosions.

Black holes distort the light coming from objects around them. Credit: NASA GSFC, ESA/Gaia/DPAC

A Star Where It Shouldn't Be

There’s a massive star in our galaxy’s halo, far away from the usual star-forming haunts. How did it get there?

The O-type star HD 93521 is in the Milky Way's halo, far from the star-forming galactic plane