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Astronomers have used the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to gain an unprecedentedly clear view of the disk of gas and dust surrounding the star Vega. There’s no sign of large planets orbiting within it, forcing astronomers to reconsider the range of possible disk architectures and how common planetary systems like the solar system […]
Using the CHIME radio telescope, astronomers detected a three-second flash from a far-off galaxy that contained beat with a surprising regularity. Photo courtesy of CHIME, with background edited by MIT News For the first time ever, astronomers have detected a fast radio burst (FRB) in a large elliptical galaxy. The discovery, announced at the FRB2024 […]
In AD 1181, astronomers in China and Japan recorded a new star in the sky, a rare supernova explosion. The remains of that supernova, called SN 1181, are depicted here in this artist’s animation, which flies around the remnant as it appears today. W. M. Keck Observatory / Adam Makarenko Astronomers have, for the first […]
This image combines data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope to show the center of the Milky Way at infrared wavelengths. Hubble: NASA / ESA / and Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst); Spitzer: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory / S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center / Caltech) Main-sequence stars with brighter […]