SKYNIGHTLY - SKY NIGHTLY

Jan 11, 2015 (JPL)

Astronomers are enlisting the help of machines to sort through thousands of stars in our galaxy and learn their sizes, compositions and other basic traits. The ...

Map of Mysterious Molecules Sheds New Light on Century-old Puzzle

Jan 11, 2015 (SPX)

By analyzing the light of hundreds of thousands of celestial objects, astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have created a unique map of enigmati...

A New, Public View of the Sky

Jan 08, 2015 (SPX)

For the first time, scientists and the public are beginning to see the large-scale structure of the universe, thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. UA scienti...

SDSS: Sloan Survey Opens New Public View of the Sky

Jan 07, 2015 (SPX)

Today, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) issues its latest public data release, the final release of the third epoch of the survey (SDSS-III). Weighing in at ...

Week of excitement (meteors and moons) for sky-watchers

Dec 29, 2014 (UPI)

This week is jam-packed with sky-gazing events -- moons disappearing, meteors sparkling and comets whizzing. First up is a vanishing act by two of Jupiter's moo...

Horsehead of a Different Color

Dec 26, 2014 (JPL)

Sometimes a horse of a different color hardly seems to be a horse at all, as, for example, in this newly released image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The...

Surprising Theorists, Stars Within Middle-Aged Clusters Are of Similar Age

Dec 18, 2014 (SPX)

A close look at the night sky reveals that stars don't like to be alone; instead, they congregate in clusters, in some cases containing as many as several milli...

Galactic Gathering Gives Sparkling Light Display

Dec 15, 2014 (SPX)

At this time of year, holiday parties often include festive lights. When galaxies get together, they also may be surrounded by a spectacular light show. That's ...

Star-gazing tourists flock to Africa's darkest place

Dec 05, 2014 (AFP)

Not many tourist spots boast of being dark and difficult to get to, but the Namib desert is one of a number of remote "Dark Sky Reserves" drawing in stargazers ...

'Eye of Sauron' provides new way of measuring distances to galaxies

Nov 28, 2014 (SPX)

A team of scientists, led by Dr Sebastian Hoenig from the University of Southampton, have developed a new way of measuring precise distances to galaxies tens of...

Polish astronomers spot young Stellar Bridge in the Magellanic Clouds

Nov 28, 2014 (SPX)

Polish astronomers from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) have discovered a young stellar bridge, that forms a continuous connection between t...

Jets, bubbles, and bursts of light in Taurus

Nov 10, 2014 (SPX)

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a striking view of a multiple star system called XZ Tauri, its neighbour HL Tauri, and several nearby young stel...

UCLA astronomers solve puzzle about bizarre object at the center of our galaxy

Nov 06, 2014 (SPX)

For years, astronomers have been puzzled by a bizarre object in the center of the Milky Way that was believed to be a hydrogen gas cloud headed toward our galax...

Hubble Sees 'Ghost Light' From Dead Galaxies

Oct 31, 2014 (SPX)

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has picked up the faint, ghostly glow of stars ejected from ancient galaxies that were gravitationally ripped apart several billio...

Georgia State astronomers image the exploding fireball stage of a nova

Oct 28, 2014 (SPX)

Astronomers at Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) have observed the expanding thermonuclear fireball from a nova th...

Illusions in the Cosmic Clouds

Oct 27, 2014 (JPL)

Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon where people see recognizable shapes in clouds, rock formations, or otherwise unrelated objects or data. There are ma...

Slow-Growing Galaxies Offer Window to Early Universe

Oct 16, 2014 (JPL)

What makes one rose bush blossom with flowers, while another remains barren? Astronomers ask a similar question of galaxies, wondering how some flourish with st...

Wild ducks take flight in open cluster

Oct 03, 2014 (SPX)

Messier 11 is an open cluster, sometimes referred to as a galactic cluster, located around 6000 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It...

Gaia discovers its first supernova

Sep 15, 2014 (ESA)

While scanning the sky to measure the positions and movements of stars in our Galaxy, Gaia has discovered its first stellar explosion in another galaxy far, far...

Hawaii scientist maps, names Laniakea, our home supercluster of galaxies

Sep 05, 2014 (SPX)

University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomer R. Brent Tully, who recently shared the 2014 Gruber Cosmology Prize and the 2014 Victor Ambartsumian International Priz...