In another 70 million years, the stars will migrate even closer together, with an ultrashort orbit reaching just 18 minutes, before they begin to expand and drift apart.
October 6, 2022Galaxies, such as the Milky Way, are the building blocks of the universe, each comprised of up to several hundred billion stars.
September 29, 2022The team of researchers are led by Prof Aruna Goswami and her doctoral students Meenakshi P and Shejeelammal J at IIA. The work has been published in ‘The Astrophysical Journal’ recently, a Ministry of Science and Technology note here in Friday said.
December 31, 2021"This truly is the first sample of dual quasars at the peak epoch of galaxy formation with which we can use to probe ideas about how supermassive black holes come together to eventually form a binary,"
April 7, 2021When complete, the SKA will enable astronomers to monitor the sky in unprecedented detail and survey the entire sky much faster than any system currently in existence, researchers said.
May 13, 2019Astronomers have captured the first detailed images of the surface and atmosphere of a star outside the solar system, a report said. Images of Antares, a red supergiant, more than 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpio, have been captured, reported Nature magazine. The team obtained the images using the European Southern Observatory’s Very...
August 24, 2017Astronomers have identified the oldest known asteroid family, which extends throughout the inner region of the main asteroid belt. The team also discovered a relatively sparse region of the main asteroid belt, where the few asteroids present are likely pristine relics from early in solar system history. "The family we identified has no name, because...
August 5, 2017Astronomers have detected mysterious radio signals coming from the direction of a small, dim star located about 11 light-years from Earth. The signals came from a red dwarf star – Ross 128 (GJ 447) – which is around 2,800 times dimmer than the Sun and is not yet known to have any planets, researchers said....
July 17, 2017Using a ground-based telescope, astronomers have detected large quantities of methanol around Saturn moon Enceladus – a finding that may have implications in the search for alien life. Enceladus's plumes are thought to originate in water escaping from a subsurface ocean through cracks in the moon's icy surface. Eventually these plumes feed into Saturn's second-outermost...
July 5, 2017Astronomers have shown that the fastest-moving stars in our galaxy, known as hypervelocity stars, are in fact runaways from a much smaller galaxy in orbit around our own. These stellar sprinters originated in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy in orbit around the Milky Way, the findings showed. These fast-moving stars were able...
July 5, 2017In a major breakthrough, astronomers including one of Indian origin have discovered two supermassive black holes orbiting each other 750 million light years away from Earth – a finding that may help better understand how gravitational waves are formed. Last year, an international team of researchers detected the existence of gravitational waves, confirming German physicist...
June 28, 2017Astronomers have detected a first-of-its kind compact yet massive, fast-spinning, disk-shaped galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang. Finding such a galaxy early in the history of the universe challenges the current understanding of how massive galaxies form and evolve, the researchers said. The finding, published in the...
June 22, 2017Astronomers have discovered two new gas giant planets, orbiting a star located about 138 light years away from the Earth. One of the two worlds is a Saturn-mass planet, while the other one is a cold exoplanet several times more massive than Jupiter, researchers said. The two planets orbit a star HD 27894, which was...
June 12, 2017Astronomers have detected a life enabling organic compound — methyl isocyanate — around an infant star system some 400 light-years away. The IRAS 16293-2422 is a multiple protostar system, in a large star-forming region called Rho Ophiuchi in the Serpent Bearer constellation. Harnessing the power of an astronomical interferometer of radio telescopes — the Atacama...
June 9, 2017An international team of astronomers has observed that enormous quantities of space dust in galaxies could play an important role in hiding the black holes they harbour at their centres. The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) scientists have revealed this at the 230th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting, Efe news reported. Stephanie Juneau, one of...
June 6, 2017Astronomers have discovered the hottest planet ever known, with a dayside temperature of more than 4,300 degrees Celsius. In fact, this planet, called KELT-9b, is hotter than most stars, according to a study published in the journal Nature. "This is the hottest gas giant planet that has ever been discovered," said Scott Gaudi, Professor at...
June 6, 2017A team of astronomers has discovered a new kind of galaxies which, although extremely old — formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang — create stars more than a hundred times faster than our own Milky Way. The team made this discovery by accident when investigating quasars, which are supermassive black holes...
May 25, 2017