Astronomers detected sodium in the atmosphere of a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a yellow star. The team used Hubble's spectrometer to analyze light passing through the planet's atmosphere, revealing less sodium than expected, which may indicate high-altitude clouds blocking some light.
The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a spectacular ultraviolet galactic ring surrounding the spiral galaxy NGC 6782. The bright ring is made up of recently formed hot stars and marks a significant region of ongoing star formation. Astronomers believe that the unique shape of this ring may be linked to the presence of bars in galaxies.
The National Virtual Observatory will unite various astronomical databases, taking advantage of computer technology and data storage techniques. This project aims to maximize scientific insights from data, making them accessible to professional researchers, amateur astronomers, and students.
Celera Genomics has adopted Aura's OPUS software to streamline its development processes, saving time and resources. The partnership demonstrates the practical applications of innovative technologies developed for space exploration.
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Hubble Space Telescope provide a unique view of the largest global dust storm on Mars in several decades. The storm, which has engulfed the entire planet for three months, raises questions about Mars' thin atmosphere and climate change.
A team of scientists discovered a small, faint galaxy at 13.4 billion light-years using the Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Telescopes. The galaxy, with a mass of just a few million times that of our Sun, is thought to be one of the earliest building blocks of galaxies.
A massive star's remnant is discovered in the Milky Way galaxy, moving at an incredible speed of 300,000 miles per hour. The black hole, called XTE J1118+480, was gravitationally ejected from a globular cluster and has consumed its companion star.
NGC 3310 is forming clusters of new stars at a prodigious rate, with hundreds of individual young, luminous stars visible throughout the galaxy. The wide range of cluster ages suggests that the starbursting can continue for an extended interval, once triggered.
Astronomers have observed a web-like structure in space using NASA's FUSE satellite, confirming theoretical models of how matter condensed into galaxies. The helium traces the universe's architecture back to very early times, shedding light on its re-energization by quasars and star birth.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected unusual microlensing events in the M22 globular cluster, hinting at a new population of wandering, planet-sized objects. These bodies are estimated to have masses as low as 80 times that of Earth, a discovery that could challenge current understanding of celestial mechanics.
Astronomers studied 37 nearby galaxies using Hubble Space Telescope images in ultraviolet light, finding that faraway galaxies may not be inherently odd-shaped. The survey suggests that astronomers are detecting the 'tip of the iceberg' of very distant galaxies, and that their shapes may be influenced by incomplete observations.
The discovery confirms the existence of an event horizon around the massive black hole Cygnus XR-1. The data shows chaotic fluctuations in ultraviolet light from swirling gas, consistent with theories of what scientists predict to see when matter falls close to the event horizon.
Astronomers have captured the clearest view of a galaxy pipeline, where material flows between two compact galaxies after a collision. The pipeline, stretching 20,000 light-years, is believed to contribute to a lack of star birth in NGC 1409, as gas flows in is too hot to form stars.
The Hubble-X image reveals a nearly circular bright cloud at the core of a star-forming region in NGC 6822. The cloud contains thousands of newly formed stars and is many times brighter and larger than the Orion Nebula in our Milky Way galaxy.