Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its innerContinue Reading
International researchers have, for the first time, pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star beyond the Sun. Using the ALMA telescope, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and the James Webb Space Telescope, they have observed the creation of the first specksContinue Reading
A fascinating glimpse into how a solar system like our own is born has been revealed with the detection of planet-forming ‘pebbles’ around two young stars. These seeds to make new worlds are thought to gradually clump together over time, in much the same way Jupiter was first created 4.5Continue Reading
Astronomers from the University of Hawaiʻi’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have discovered the most energetic cosmic explosions yet discovered, naming the new class of events “extreme nuclear transients” (ENTs). These extraordinary phenomena occur when massive stars—at least three times heavier than our Sun—are torn apart after wandering too close toContinue Reading
Astronomers have created a galactic masterpiece: an ultra-detailed image that reveals previously unseen features in the Sculptor Galaxy. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), they observed this nearby galaxy in thousands of colors simultaneously. By capturing vast amounts of data at every single location, they createdContinue Reading
Star TOI-6894 is just like many in our galaxy, a small red dwarf, and only ~20% of the mass of our Sun. Like many small stars, it is not expected to provide suitable conditions for the formation and hosting of a large planet. However, as published today in Nature Astronomy,Continue Reading
MIT astronomers have discovered a planet some 140 light-years from Earth that is rapidly crumbling to pieces. The disintegrating world is about the mass of Mercury, although it circles about 20 times closer to its star than Mercury does to the sun, completing an orbit every 30.5 hours. At suchContinue Reading
Using the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), an international team of researchers has discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought, according to a new study. By studying light anomalies made by the newly found planet’s host star and combining their results with a largerContinue Reading
Apples-to-apples comparisons in the distant universe are hard to come by. Whether the subject is dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes, or “hot Jupiters,” astronomers can spend months or years searching for comparable objects and formations to study. And it is rarer still when those objects are side-by-side. But a newContinue Reading
The largest sample of galaxy groups ever detected has been presented by a team of international astronomers using data from the James Webb Space telescope (JWST) in an area of the sky called COSMOS Web. The study marks a major milestone in extragalactic astronomy, providing unprecedented insights into the formationContinue Reading
