Astronomers have discovered the most distant progenitor to a galaxy supercluster, supporting existing theories of how galaxy clusters evolve. The study used data from the ODIN survey to map the 3D distribution of galaxies in the COSMOS-z3.1-A and COSMOS-z3.1-C clusters.
Researchers used the NSF Inouye Solar Telescope to capture high-resolution images of swirling vortices in the sun's photosphere, which are believed to be the 'engine' driving twisting magnetic field lines. This discovery could fundamentally change our understanding of solar dynamics and evolution.
Researchers have identified a unique case of a massive star's demise, marked by an exceptionally faint X-ray burst and the absence of high-velocity jets. This discovery challenges current supernova theories, which typically associate such events with gamma-ray bursts.
A team of scientists has discovered a new neutrino source candidate, an extremely bright galaxy called Shadow Blaster, located about 11 billion light-years away. The galaxy's location and brightness made it a promising candidate for the source of high-energy neutrinos.
Researchers found strong magnetic fields on ultra-hot Jupiters, similar to those in our Solar System. The presence of these fields could affect planetary climates and potentially create dramatic aurorae displays.
An international collaboration of astronomers has achieved the most precise direct measurement to date of the expansion rate of the nearby Universe. The result shows a persistent mismatch between measurements based on the nearby Universe and predictions derived from the early Universe, known as the Hubble tension.
Researchers have discovered that a giant planet, WASP-189b, echoes the composition of its host star, providing direct evidence for a foundational concept in astrobiology. The team's findings offer insights into how exoplanets form and evolve, and open new avenues for studying exoplanet atmospheres.
Astronomers have discovered a rare second-generation star, PicII-503, in the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Pictor II, which preserves the chemical imprint of the first stars in the Universe. The star has an extreme overabundance of carbon and the lowest iron abundance ever measured outside of the Milky Way.
Researchers have discovered a massive cloud of gas and dust orbiting a mysterious object 3000 light-years from Earth, featuring winds of vaporized metals including iron and calcium. The cloud is gravitationally bound to the secondary object, which orbits its host star in the outer reaches of the planetary system.
The Rubin Observatory has discovered a record-breaking asteroid, nearly the size of eight football fields, rotating every two minutes. The fastest-spinning asteroid larger than 500 meters ever found is 710 meters in diameter and completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes.
A team of astronomers used multiple NSF NOIRLab facilities, including Gemini and Blanco telescopes, to study the longest gamma-ray burst ever witnessed. Analysis revealed that the event likely originated from a relativistic jet crashing into the surrounding material in a massive, extremely dusty galaxy.
Astronomers using the Gemini South telescope have found that asteroid 1998 KY26 is much smaller and spinning faster than previously thought. The asteroid is approximately 11 meters wide and completes a rotation in just five minutes, making it challenging for Hayabusa2 to land on its surface.
Astronomers used Gemini South and James Webb Space Telescope to detect silane in ancient brown dwarf's atmosphere, revealing how primordial formation impacts planet atmospheres. The discovery confirms understanding of gas giant cloud formation and offers insight into the composition of distant worlds.
Astronomers captured dark coronal loop strands with unprecedented clarity during an X1.3-class flare, measuring 48.2 km in width, the smallest ever imaged. The team's high-resolution images offer a potential breakthrough in resolving the fundamental scale of solar coronal loops and improving space weather forecasting.
The Gemini North telescope has detected the long-predicted companion star of Betelgeuse for the first time. The companion star is six magnitudes fainter than Betelgeuse and has an estimated mass of around 1.5 times that of the Sun, confirming the presence of a stellar companion orbiting the red supergiant.
A team of astronomers found that fast X-ray transients are associated with the explosive death of massive stars, including supernovae. The International Gemini Observatory and SOAR telescope observed the event, providing insight into its mechanisms.
Scientists have observed ultra-narrow bright and dark stripes on the solar photosphere, offering unprecedented insight into how magnetic fields shape solar surface dynamics. These striations are linked to magnetic fluctuations that alter plasma density and opacity.
Scientists have developed a groundbreaking adaptive optics system that removes blur from images of the Sun's corona, revealing clearest images to date. The technology has produced remarkable observations of fine-structure in the corona, including raindrops and turbulent internal flows.
The VTF successfully captured a two-dimensional snapshot of the Sun at specific wavelengths, showcasing its scientific capabilities. The instrument enables scientists to analyze plasma properties and study solar magnetic fields, crucial for understanding solar flares and space weather.
Researchers found a mature spiral galaxy, Zhúlóng, with a structure similar to the Milky Way's, challenging previous expectations that large disks take billions of years to form. This discovery suggests that spiral arms can develop on shorter timescales and may be short-lived in the early Universe.
A team of astronomers has discovered four mini-Earth exoplanets around Barnard's Star, the nearest single star to Earth. The exoplanets are rocky and orbit their home star in a matter of days, with one being the least massive planet discovered using radial velocity technique.
Astronomers observe an ultra-hot nova, LMC68, using Gemini South's FLAMINGOS-2 instrument, detecting ionized silicon atoms. The signal is unprecedented, shining up to 100 times brighter than the Sun. This is the first near-infrared spectroscopic observation of an extragalactic recurrent nova.
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has discovered a treasure trove of actively feeding black holes in small galaxies, revealing surprisingly few are of intermediate mass. The team identified 300 new intermediate-mass black hole candidates and 2500 active black holes in dwarf galaxies.
Scientists have discovered a distant, two-lobed radio jet that spans an astonishing 200,000 light-years at least, twice the width of the Milky Way. The team used a combination of telescopes to detect the jet and measure its properties, including the mass of the quasar producing it.
The team used observations from NEID and two other spectrographs to confirm one system hosting a giant planet and another with a brown dwarf. Gaia-4b has an orbital period of 570 days, mass of 12 Jupiter masses, and orbits a star 64% the mass of the Sun.
Researchers have discovered three tiny ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, dubbed 'stellar-ghost-town' galaxies, with minimal gas and old stars. This suggests that their star formation was cut off early in the universe's history due to insufficient gravity or events like reionization or supernovae explosions.
Astronomers observe low-mass supermassive black hole consuming matter at over 40 times the theoretical limit, providing new insights into rapidly growing black holes. The discovery reveals a possible mechanism for black holes to exceed their Eddington limit, sparking further investigation.
A new study using the Dark Energy Camera has found that early-universe quasars have surrounding companion galaxies within a distance of 15 million light-years, which is consistent with expectations. However, the team also discovered that there are no companion galaxies within 60 million light-years of the quasar.
The NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope successfully produced its first detailed maps of the Sun's coronal magnetic fields, a breakthrough in solar physics. This achievement enhances our understanding of space weather and its impact on Earth's technology-dependent society, which is crucial for safeguarding infrastructure.
A team of astronomers has discovered an exoplanet with an elongated and backwards orbit, which holds clues to the formation history and future trajectories of high-mass gas giants. The exoplanet, named TIC 241249530 b, is approximately five times more massive than Jupiter and orbits its host star in a highly eccentric path.
The International Gemini Observatory and Subaru Telescope have discovered the most distant pair of merging quasars, seen only 900 million years after the Big Bang. The team used follow-up spectroscopy to confirm the nature of the quasar pair and their host galaxies.
Astronomers confirm that chemical composition differences in binary stars can be traced back to the earliest stages of their formation. The study used precise spectrographic measurements to rule out two explanations and confirmed primordial inhomogeneities within the molecular cloud as the origin of the discrepancies.
The study uses data from Gemini North to analyze a supermassive black hole binary located in the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. The team estimates the binary's mass to be 28 billion times that of the Sun, qualifying it as the heaviest binary black hole ever measured.
Christoph Keller, a world-recognized astronomer, has been appointed as the next Director of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) succeeding Dr. Valentin Pillet. Keller brings extensive experience and expertise in solar physics to lead NSO into its exciting future.
Researchers discovered a new type of astronomical object - a massive magnetic helium star that may evolve into a magnetar. The star has a phenomenally powerful magnetic field, about 43,000 gauss, and will eventually collapse into a neutron star with an even stronger magnetic field.
Researchers have found evidence of a demolition-derby-like collision of stars or stellar remnants in the chaotic region near an ancient galaxy's supermassive black hole. This suggests that stars can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the Universe, potentially creating gamma-ray bursts.
Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope have detected 11 rock-forming elements in the atmosphere of WASP-76b, a Jupiter-like exoplanet. The presence and relative amounts of these elements provide key insights into giant gas planet formation and may challenge our understanding of how planets like Mercury and Earth formed.
For most of its life, a Sun-like star fuses hydrogen into helium in its hot core, causing it to expand and engulf nearby planets. The first direct evidence of this event was observed using the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager, revealing a long-lasting outburst with ejected material containing about 33 Earth masses of hydrogen.
Astronomers have discovered a closely bound pair of actively feeding supermassive black holes in the same galactic real estate, 10,000 light-years apart. This finding provides crucial information about the nature of cosmic systems on the verge of becoming giant elliptical galaxies.
The Dark Energy Camera has captured a rare and detailed view of the supernova remnant from 185. This event is significant as it marks the first-ever documented supernova. The team aims to better understand dark energy's impact on astronomical observations.
Researchers used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to study the motions of nearly 7500 stars in the inner halo of the Andromeda Galaxy. They found telltale patterns that revealed how these stars began their lives as part of another galaxy, shedding light on galactic immigration events.
Astronomers have uncovered a rare binary star system that has the right conditions to trigger a kilonova, an ultra-powerful explosion created by colliding neutron stars. The system, CPD-29 2176, is one of only about 10 such systems thought to exist in the Milky Way Galaxy.
A new study by Globe at Night reveals that artificial lighting is dulling the night sky more rapidly than satellite measurements indicate. The loss of visible stars has alarming implications for human health and wildlife.
Astronomers have released a colossal dataset revealing 3.32 billion celestial objects in unprecedented detail, covering 6.5% of the night sky. The Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey captures stars, star-forming regions, and dark clouds with innovative data-processing techniques.
Two independent teams of astronomers detected the unexpected hallmarks of a kilonova after a long gamma-ray burst, challenging the prevailing theory that long GRBs exclusively come from supernovae. The discovery was made possible by the proximity of the event and the sensitivity of telescopes like Gemini North.
Astronomers have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth, a dormant stellar-mass black hole located about 1600 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. This discovery was made possible by precise observations of the motion of the black hole's companion star using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph instrument.
An international team has discovered three near-Earth asteroids, including one that is 1.5 kilometers wide and may someday threaten Earth's path. The observations were made possible by the unique capabilities of the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
Scientists have discovered the remnant material of an ancient star's explosion using innovative analysis of a quasar. The study suggests a 300-solar-mass first-generation star died in a 'super-supernova' explosion, leaving behind a distinctive blend of heavy elements.
Researchers use Gemini Observatory's Zorro instrument to observe R136a1, finding it may be less massive than previously thought, potentially altering understanding of element formation. This breakthrough pushes the capabilities of ground-based telescopes, rivaling those of Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes.
Astronomers have found that short gamma-ray bursts did not originate as castaways, but instead occurred in distant galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away. The discovery suggests that these events may have been more common in the past than expected and could have seeded the Universe with precious metals.