New Atlas

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Colossal X-ray "chimneys" discovered at center of the Milky Way

Michael Irving March 20, 2019

It's hard to really understand the large-scale structure of the Milky Way. Now, astronomers have peered towards the center of the galaxy using the ESA's X-ray telescope XMM-Newton, and discovered two colossal "chimneys" pumping huge amounts of energy and gas out into intergalactic space.

An artist's impression of two huge "chimneys" spewing energetic particles out of the center of the ...

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Supernova sends "cannonball" pulsar hurtling at intergalactic speeds

Michael Irving March 19, 2019

The universe is full of fascinating stories, and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has just spotted a doozy. About 10,000 years ago a star went supernova, and the explosion shot the resulting pulsar off like a cannonball, with enough force to send it hurtling out of the galaxy altogether.

The CTB 1 supernova remnant, visible here as a "bubble." The speeding pulsar is a tiny ...

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Astronomers spot a new planetary system forming nearby

Michael Irving March 17, 2019

Roughly 4.6 billion years ago, all the planets in our solar system began to form in a huge disk of dust and gas that swirled around the Sun. Now astronomers have spotted the same kind of thing happening around a nearby young star, which could give us a better understanding of planet formation.

An artist's impression of the two dust disks surrounding the nearby young star DM Tau, which ...

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NASA lab brews up alien atmospheres here on Earth

Michael Irving March 14, 2019

Earth’s pleasant, life-giving atmosphere is turning out to be somewhat of an oddity. To get a better understanding of exoplanets, a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has recreated one of these alien atmospheres in the lab.

A NASA team has recreated the atmosphere of a "hot Jupiter" exoplanet, similar to this artist's ...

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NASA lab brews up alien atmospheres here on Earth

Michael Irving March 14, 2019

Earth’s pleasant, life-giving atmosphere is turning out to be somewhat of an oddity. To get a better understanding of exoplanets, a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has recreated one of these alien atmospheres in the lab.

Space Audio available

Astronomers spot new bumper crop of supermassive black holes in the early universe

Michael Irving March 13, 2019

To look through space is to look through time. Astronomers on a 5-years survey have turned up 100 supermassive black holes from a time when they were thought to be rare, suggesting we might need to rewrite our understanding of their evolution.

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Astronomers make unexpected dusty discoveries in Mercury's and Venus' orbits

Michael Irving March 12, 2019

Saturn may sport the most famous rings in the solar system, but it’s far from the only thing with some bling. Now, two new studies have found evidence of new rings in the inner solar system – a dusty one in the orbit of Mercury and a new set of asteroids following Venus’ path around the Sun.

Astronomers have discovered a dusty ring near Mercury, and hypothesized that there's an undetected population of ...

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Doomed, rare black hole spotted near the center of the galaxy

Michael Irving March 3, 2019

Black holes tend to fall into two categories: fairly small or supermassive. It’s long been believed that there should be a middle class, and in recent years astronomers have found evidence of these “intermediate mass” black holes. Now a Japanese team has located one near the center of the Milky Way.

Japanese astronomers have discovered a rare type of black hole near the center of the Milky ...

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New clues emerge in the hunt for Planet Nine

Michael Irving February 27, 2019

In the last few years, evidence suggests there’s an unknown rocky world lurking on the fringes of the solar system. The astronomers who originally proposed the Planet Nine hypothesis have now published two more papers analyzing the case, highlighting a few new clues.

An artist's impression of the hypothetical Planet Nine

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"Risky" close-ups of Ultima Thule are New Horizons' finest ever work

Michael Irving February 24, 2019

New Horizons has sent back the clearest images of Ultima Thule to date. The new images were snapped just minutes before the spacecraft made its closest pass of the Kuiper Belt object on January 1, in what the science team calls a risky “stretch goal” of the project.

This image of Ultima Thule was snapped about 19 minutes before New Horizons' closest approach, showing ...