Astronomy
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Snapshot
Shadows in space?
Hubble gets down and dusty with IC 5063.
This Hubble Space Telescope image of the heart of the active galaxy IC 5063, 156 million light-years from Earth, reve...
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It’s blue, but it’s not actually a ring
Scientists solve a 16-year-old cosmic mystery.
The so-called Blue Ring Nebula, which has perplexed astronomers for a decade and a half, appears to be the youngest k...
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Rethinking the Milky Way’s evolution
Telescopes combine to reveal orbits of ancient stars.
An investigation into the odd orbits of the galaxy’s oldest stars may prompt astronomers to rethink how the Milky Way...
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Snapshot
Colour and movement in the skies above
A cosmic amethyst and the Perseus Cluster.
You can’t beat space for great snapshots, and here we present not one but four new ones. Above is what could be ca...
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Astronomers detect rare kilonova explosion
They’re fast, furious, unusual and truly impressive.
Astronomers studying short-lived gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have detected a rare kilonova explosion in which two neutron...
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Important discovery of a cold brown dwarf
Astronomers achieve a first using radio observations.
Astronomers have reported the first direct discovery of a cold brown dwarf from its radio wavelength emission. It...
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Jupiter’s moon Europa may glow in the dark
An exciting destination just got more intriguing.
In news that is sure to delight every kid with stickers of stars and planets on their ceiling, planetary scientists h...
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History
Lady Stardust was a star of astrophysics
Margaret Burbidge found her calling early.
Margaret Burbidge, named by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as “one of the most influe...
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Playing detective on a galactic scale
Huge new dataset will solve Milky Way mysteries.
An Australian-led team of “galactic archaeologists” has just released the largest set of stellar chemical data ever c...
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Tracing the origins of fast radio bursts
Two teams spot first event in the Milky Way.
Radio astronomers monitoring the sky for unusual events have found a fast radio burst (FRB) in the constellation Vulp...
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Unusual centaur emitting gas and dust
Recent arrival will provide clues to Solar System history.
Astronomers and planetary scientists studying a little-known group of icy bodies called centaurs have found one that ...
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Bits of big asteroid found on small one
NASA’s Bennu sampling mission may be a twofer.
Scientists poring over images from the asteroid 101955 Bennu, now being orbited by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, have...