April 30, 2013 Messier 64, the famous Black Eye Galaxy Image Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) Messier 64 (also known as NGC 4826, the Black Eye Galaxy, Sleeping Beauty Galaxy or Evil Eye Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy of about 51,000 light-years across, located roughly 17 million light-years away in the northern [continue reading]
TAU finds white dwarf stars may hold the key to detecting life on other planets Because it has no source of energy, a dead star — known as a white dwarf — will eventually cool down and fade away. But circumstantial evidence suggests that white dwarfs can still support habitable planets, says [continue reading]
April 29, 2013 G350.1-0.3, a supernova remnant in Scorpius Image Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/I. Lovchinsky et al. G350.1-0.3 is a very bright supernova remnant of just about 8 light-years across, located some 14,700 light-years away from Earth toward the center of the Milky Way in the constellation of Scorpius. It is associated with the neutron star XMMU [continue reading]
Astronomers have released a new image of the outer atmosphere of Betelgeuse – one of the nearest red supergiants to Earth – revealing the detailed structure of the matter being thrown off the star. The e-MERLIN image of Betelgeuse. Image Credit: University of Manchester The new image, taken by the e-MERLIN radio telescope array operated [continue reading]
A University of Washington astronomer is using Earth’s interstellar neighbors to learn the nature of certain stars too far away to be directly measured or observed, and the planets they may host. Current list of potentially habitable exoplanets including Kepler-61b. Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune were added for scale. Image Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory @ [continue reading]
April 28, 2013 Messier 70, a globular cluster in Sagittarius Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Messier 70 (also known as NGC 6681) is a 12.8 billion years old globular cluster of some 68 light-years across, located about 29,300 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius (the Archer), while it is receding from us at [continue reading]