STELLAR CHEMISTRY - SKY NIGHTLY

Webb continues multi-instrument alignment

Mar 28, 2022 (SPX)

The Webb team has begun progressively adjusting both the cryocooler and these heaters, to ensure a slow, controlled, stable cooldown for the instrument. Soon, t...

IXPE checks out x-rays from extreme objects

Mar 23, 2022 (SPX)

Launched in December 2021, IXPE has detected polarized X-rays from three of its first six targets. Polarized X-rays carry unique details about where the light c...

LAMOST Helps to Propose New Method Searching for Clusters in Andromeda Galaxy

Mar 23, 2022 (SPX)

With this method, the researchers identified 117 new high-confidence cluster candidates in the Andromeda galaxy based on the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey...

NASA spots giant debris cloud created by clashing celestial bodies

Mar 19, 2022 (JPL)

Astronomers using NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope have in the past found evidence of these types of collisions around young stars where rocky planets...

Direct generation of complex structured light

Mar 19, 2022 (SPX)

For structured beam generation and nonlinear frequency conversion, researchers have considered both intracavity oscillation and external cavity spatial modulati...

Gaia snaps photo of Webb at L2

Mar 17, 2022 (ESA)

On 18 February 2022, the two spacecraft were 1 million km apart, with an edge-on view of Gaia towards Webb's huge sunshield. Very little reflected sunlight came...

NASA sharpens focus of James Webb Space Telescope

Mar 16, 2022 (UPI)

NASA plans to update the press and the public on James Webb progress during a virtual press conference at noon EDT. Previously, the agency released early images...

'Visionary' US astrophysicist Eugene Parker dead at 94

Mar 16, 2022 (AFP)

Parker was hailed as a visionary who laid the groundwork for the field of heliophysics, the science of understanding the Sun and its interactions with Earth and...

Tiny Star Unleashes Gargantuan Beam of Matter and Antimatter

Mar 15, 2022 (SPX)

The panel on the left displays about one third the length of the beam from the pulsar known as PSR J2030+4415 (J2030 for short), which is located about 1,600 li...

Cosmic particle accelerator at its limit

Mar 11, 2022 (SPX)

A nova creates a shock wave that tears through the surrounding medium, pulling particles with it and accelerating them to extreme energies. Surprisingly, the no...

Researchers unravel inner workings of galaxy clusters with 196 lasers

Mar 10, 2022 (SPX)

"Galaxy clusters are one of the most awe-inspiring things in the universe," said Prof. Emeritus Don Lamb, a University of Chicago astrophysicist and co-author o...

Detecting ultralight dark matter using quantum technology

Mar 08, 2022 (SPX)

The study was led by Prof. Tomer Volansky, research student Itay Bloch from the Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy in the Raymond and B...

Dark energy: Neutron stars will tell us if it's only an illusion

Mar 07, 2022 (SPX)

Thanks to huge computational and mathematical effort, scientists produced the first simulation ever of merging binary neutron stars in theories beyond general r...

Astronomers map mysterious element in space

Mar 07, 2022 (SPX)

Ytterbium is one of four elements in the periodic table named after the Ytterby mine in the Stockholm archipelago. The element was first discovered in the black...

New study sheds light on axion dark matter

Mar 07, 2022 (SPX)

The identity of dark matter, which makes up 85% of the matter in the universe, is one of the big unanswered questions in particle physics. Scientists know of it...

NASA's NuSTAR Makes Illuminating Discoveries With 'Nuisance' Light

Mar 02, 2022 (JPL)

But now team members have figured out how to use that stray X-ray light to learn about objects in NuSTAR's peripheral vision while also performing normal target...

China eyes Qinghai-Tibet Plateau site for new radio astronomy observatory

Mar 01, 2022 (XNA)

Proposed by the Nanjing-based Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the observatory project includes a new submillimeter-wave telescop...

Kilonova afterglow potentially spotted for first time

Mar 01, 2022 (SPX)

A kilonova occurs when two neutron stars - some of the densest objects in the universe - merge to create a blast 1,000 times brighter than a classical nova. In ...

Webb Mirror Alignment continues successfully

Feb 28, 2022 (SPX)

After moving what were 18 scattered dots of starlight into Webb's signature hexagonal formation, the team refined each mirror segment's image by making minor ad...

Cosmic flashes pinpointed to a surprising location in space

Feb 24, 2022 (SPX)

Fast radio bursts are unpredictable, extremely short flashes of light from space. Astronomers have struggled to understand them ever since they were first disco...