galaxy formation, gravitational lensing, hubble telescope, space

Gravitational Lensing Aids Hubble in Viewing Faraway Galaxies

The center of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is framed by the tell-tale arcs that result from strong gravitational lensing, a striking astronomical phenomenon that can warp, magnify, or even duplicate the appearance of distant galaxies.  Gravitational lensing Gravitational lensing occurs when light from a distant galaxy is subtly distorted by the ...

Troy Oakes

The Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble Data Confirms Galaxies Are Lacking Dark Matter

The most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and Shany Danieli, a NASA Hubble ...

Troy Oakes

The Milky Way Galaxy seen over the mountains.

Mistaken Identity: A Presumed Supernova Is Actually Something Much Rarer

In a case of cosmic mistaken identity, an international team of astronomers revealed that what they once thought was a supernova is actually periodic flaring from a galaxy where a supermassive black hole gives off bursts of energy every 114 days as it tears off chunks of an orbiting star. Six years after its initial ...

Troy Oakes

A supernova imposter.

Hubble Data Suggests an Ingredient Is Missing From Current Dark Matter Theories

Dark matter is the invisible glue that keeps stars, dust, and gas together in a galaxy. This mysterious substance makes up the bulk of a galaxy’s mass and forms the foundation of our Universe’s large-scale structure. Because dark matter does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, its presence is only known through its gravitational pull ...

Troy Oakes

Galaxy cluster MACSJ 1206.

Carbon-Rich Exoplanets May Be Made of Diamonds

As missions like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, TESS, and Kepler continue to provide insights into the properties of exoplanets (planets around other stars), scientists are increasingly able to piece together what these planets look like, what they are made of, and if they could be habitable or even inhabited. In a new study published recently in The Planetary Science Journal, a ...

Troy Oakes

Diamond anvil cells.

Earth’s Magnetic Song Recorded for the First Time During a Solar Storm

Data from ESA’s Cluster mission has provided a recording of the eerie “Earth’s magnetic song” that Earth sings when it is hit by a solar storm. The song comes from waves that are generated in the Earth’s magnetic field by the collision of the storm. The storm itself is the eruption of electrically charged particles ...

Troy Oakes

In this image, Earth is the dot to the left of the image and the large arc around it is our planet’s magnetic bow shock. The swirling pattern to the right is the foreshock region where the solar wind breaks into waves as it encounters reflected particles from the bow shock.

The New Race to Space

Back in 2014, NASA awarded both Boeing and SpaceX contracts to develop commercial crew transportation systems; the eventual initial missions under these contracts will involve trips to the International Space Station (ISS). In contrast, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have solid plans to cash in on human space travel by ferrying tourists to the frontier ...

David Clapp

The Earth as seen from space.

Glassy Beads Hint of a Mysterious Missing Crater

Imperial experts have found a “breadcrumb trail” of glassy beads debris from an 800,000-year-old meteor impact. Around 800,000 years ago, a 20 kilometer meteor collided with the Earth, producing a zone of glassy beads debris in Australasia that covers a tenth of the Earth’s surface. However, despite the impact’s relatively young age in geological terms, ...

Troy Oakes

Why Does the Universe Have More Matter Than Antimatter?

An international team of physicists, including researchers at MIT, have reported the first results from an underground experiment designed to answer one of physics most fundamental questions: Why is our universe made mostly of matter and not antimatter? According to theory, the Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter — the ...

Troy Oakes

The Mysterious Purple Lights in the Sky Now Solved

Notanee Bourassa knew that the purple lights he was seeing in the night sky were not normal. Bourassa, an I.T. technician in Regina, Canada, trekked outside of his home on July 25, 2016, around midnight with his two younger children to show them a beautiful moving light display in the sky — an aurora borealis. ...

Troy Oakes