Astronomy & Space News

On Feb. 25, 2021, the NASA Headquarters Building in Washington D.C. was officially renamed after Mary W. Jackson, the agency's first African American female engineer.

This 2003 composite X-ray and optical image of galaxy NGC 1068 shows gas blowing away in a high-speed wind from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole.

This image depicts a possible area through which the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover could traverse across Jezero Crater.

This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) on the underside of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover after its landing.

On Feb. 28, 2011, NASA astronaut Alvin Drew participates in the STS-133 mission's first spacewalk as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station.

NASAs Perseverance Rover lands on Mars.

During the Mars Perseverance engineering and technology overview on Feb. 16, 2021, chief engineer Adam Steltzner displays a rover wheel.

The Empire State Building is illuminated in red to celebrate this Thursday's scheduled landing on Mars of NASA's Perseverance rover, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021.

If we find life on the Red Planet, we'll have astrobiologists like Dr. Kennda Lynch to thank.

A physician, flight surgeon, and NASA astronaut, Bernard Harris became the first African American to perform a spacewalk in February 1995, .

There are more than 100,000 proteins in the human body. Every structure is different, and each one of them holds important information related to our health.

This stunning image captures a small region on the edge of the inky Coalsack Nebula, or Caldwell 99.

This view of a sunrise breaking through the Earth's horizon was taken as the International Space Station orbited 271 miles above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern Chile.

In this image from 2018, NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps trains in a U.S. spacesuit at the Johnson Space Center.

The tip of the "wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is dazzling in this view from NASA's Great Observatories.

After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population.

A team of scientists has detected the presence of a high-energy neutrino in the wake of a star's destruction as it is consumed by a black hole. This discovery sheds new light on the origins of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays -- the highest energy particles in the Universe.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured stunning views of Venus during its close flyby of the planet in July 2020. For more insight, the WISPR team planned a set of similar observations of the Venusian nightside during Parker Solar Probe's latest Venus flyby on Feb. 20, 2021. Mission team scientists expect to receive and process that data for analysis by the end of April.

A scientist examined 11 Mars years of image data to understand the seasonal processes that create linear gullies on the slopes of the megadune in the Russell crater on Mars.

A new theoretical study has proposed a novel mechanism for the creation of supermassive black holes from dark matter. The international team find that rather than the conventional formation scenarios involving 'normal' matter, supermassive black holes could instead form directly from dark matter in high density regions in the centres of galaxies. The result has key implications for cosmology in the early Universe.

Researchers have detected cosmic pipelines supplying the cold gases necessary for the formation of massive galaxies and the creation of stars. It is the first direct observational evidence of the phenomenon in the early universe.

According to a new study, Earth, Venus and Mars were created from small dust particles containing ice and carbon. The discovery opens up the possibility that the Milky Way may be filled with aquatic planets.

New video from NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover chronicles major milestones during the final minutes of its entry, descent, and landing (EDL) on the Red Planet on Feb. 18 as the spacecraft plummeted, parachuted, and rocketed toward the surface of Mars. A microphone on the rover also has provided the first audio recording of sounds from Mars.

Astronomers have discovered that large galaxies are stealing the material that their smaller counterparts need to form new stars.

For only the second time, astronomers have linked an elusive particle called a high-energy neutrino to an object outside our galaxy. Using ground- and space-based facilities, they traced the neutrino to a black hole tearing apart a star, a rare cataclysmic occurrence called a tidal disruption event.

From aboard the Juno spacecraft, an instrument observing auroras serendipitously spotted a bright flash above Jupiter's clouds last spring. The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) team studied the data and determined that they had captured a bolide, an extremely bright meteoroid explosion in the gas giant's upper atmosphere.

A doctoral student has mined the most recent Gaia survey for all binary stars near Earth and created a 3D atlas of 1.3 million of them. The last local survey included about 200 binary pairs. With such census data, astronomers can conduct statistical analyses on binary populations. For pairs that contain white dwarfs, it's possible to determine the age of their main-sequence companion, and thus of any exoplanets around them.

The largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars Thursday, after a 203-day journey traversing 293 million miles (472 million kilometers). About the size of a car, the robotic geologist and astrobiologist will undergo several weeks of testing before it begins its two-year science investigation of Mars' Jezero Crater. A fundamental part of its mission is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.

New observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe's most mysterious objects. The research shows the system known as Cygnus X-1 contains the most massive stellar-mass black hole ever detected without the use of gravitational waves.

An international research team has developed a new method for directly imaging smaller planets in the habitable zone of a neighboring star system. This opens up new possibilities in the search for extraterrestrial life.

With a Full Moon early in the week, February 26 to March 5 is a great time to enjoy planets, star clusters, and bright nebulae.

Q: What causes the formation of spiral arms in galaxies? Do spiral arms form in other flattened groups of orbiting objects, like planetary rings and protostellar disks? Robert Harrison Albuquerque, New Mexico A: Spiral arms in galaxies can form by a combination of processes. In a spiral galaxy, everything orbits at the same speed, meaning stars and gas near the center of the galaxy complete an orbit in less time than objects farther out. This effect is referred to as differential rotation. So,

Mars is passing the Pleiades. Sirius and Canis Major take over the early-evening meridian from Orion. And low in the dawn, Jupiter closes in on Mercury.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, February 26 – March 6 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Now, there's more evidence that astronomers have found the pulsar at the heart of Supernova 1987A. Plus, a new stunning image of Venus.

The post 60-second Astro News: Venus Close-up and Supernova 1987A appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Scientists may have discovered a clue to how massive stars form in the Orion Nebula and a stellar birthplace.

The post A Map of a Stellar Explosion appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The images from five Brazilian amateur astronomers have captured Hubble-level details in galaxies, laying the ground for future work in understanding their histories. Want to join the fun?

The post Amateur Astronomers Reveal Long-Ago Galaxy Mergers appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A single high-energy neutrino may shed light on a star being swallowed by a supermassive black hole some 750 million light-years away.

The post Star-shredding Black Hole Makes Ghostlike Particle appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

NASA’s Perseverance rover is providing us with amazing views of its new home., including an amazing video of the sky-crane descent.

The post Watch NASA's Perseverance Land in Jezero Crater on Mars appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A higher mass for Cygnus X-1, the first black hole to be discovered, challenges ideas about the evolution of massive stars.

The post First-detected Black Hole is More Massive Than We Thought appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Scientists have made a new and improved map of possible water-ice reservoirs on Mars.

The post New Map of Ice on Mars Will Aid Future Crewed Missions appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Sirius the Dog Star blazes high in the southeast after dinnertime, the brightest star of Canis Major. Spot it lower left of Orion. The stars of Canis Major can be connected to form a convincing dog profile.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, February 19 – 27 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

About once a month this winter, we can watch the Moon take a four-day journey across a field of stars termed the "Winter Hexagon."

The post Watch the Moon Journey Across the Winter Hexagon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.