For the first time, a much younger version of the Sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy, by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The bubble – called an “astrosphere” – completely surrounds the juvenile star. Winds from the star’s surface are blowing up the bubble and filling it with hot gas […]
In the vast tapestry of the universe, most galaxies shine brightly across cosmic time and space. Yet a rare class of galaxies remains nearly invisible — low-surface-brightness galaxies dominated by dark matter and containing only a sparse scattering of faint stars. One such elusive object, dubbed CDG-2, may be among the most heavily dark matter-dominated […]
At the center of the Egg Nebula is its yolk: a deteriorating sun-like star.
This stunning image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reveals a dramatic interplay of light and shadow in the Egg Nebula, sculpted by freshly ejected stardust. Located approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Egg Nebula features a central star obscured by a dense cloud of dust — like a “yolk” nestled within a […]
This is the first time humans have laid eyes on these deep space objects.
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features an uncommon galaxy with a striking appearance. NGC 7722 is a lenticular galaxy located about 187 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. A lenticular, meaning “lens-shaped,” galaxy is a type whose classification sits between more familiar spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies. It is also less common than spirals and ellipticals — partly because […]
A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence-assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The team analyzed nearly 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive, each measuring just a few dozen pixels (7 to 8 arcseconds) on a side. They identified more than […]
The Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, is a key spot for astronomers to study star formation.
Newly developing stars shrouded in thick dust get their first baby pictures in these images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble took these infant star snapshots in an effort to learn how massive stars form. Protostars are shrouded in thick dust that blocks light, but Hubble can detect the near-infrared emission that shines through holes […]
While this eerie NASA Hubble Space Telescope image may look ghostly, it’s actually full of new life. Lupus 3 is a star-forming cloud about 500 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. White wisps of gas swirl throughout the region, and in the lower-left corner resides a dark dust cloud. Bright T Tauri stars shine at […]