New Atlas

Space Audio available

Odd orbits shed light on identity of objects that are half-star, half-planet

Michael Irving April 11, 2019

Strange celestial objects known as brown dwarfs could be classed as either the largest possible planets or the smallest possible stars. Now astronomers from Heidelberg University have found evidence of brown dwarfs forming like planets, as opposed to stars.

Space Audio available

Gigantic dusty donut around a black hole imaged for the first time

Michael Irving April 5, 2019

Active galactic nuclei are known by different names depending on the viewing angle. Now, for the first time astronomers have directly imaged the last piece of the puzzle that ties them all together – a dusty donut of material that surrounds a supermassive black hole.

An illustration of a torus around an active galactic nucleus, which has been imaged directly for ...

Space Audio available

Curiosity watches as Mars' two moons eclipse the Sun

Michael Irving April 4, 2019

A solar eclipse is an amazing sight to behold, and it's an astronomical event that's not limited to Earth. NASA's Curiosity rover has captured images of Mars' two moons, Phobos and Deimos, as they passed between the Red Planet and the Sun.

The Curiosity rover has captured Martian solar eclipses

Space Audio available

New galaxy discovered that's light on dark matter

Michael Irving April 1, 2019

In a pair of studies published this week, astronomers have shed new light on dark matter through close observation of a galaxy previously found to have very little of the stuff, while the same team found a new example of a similar oddball galaxy.

The galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 has been found to have very little dark matter

Space Audio available

Saturn's strange moons are scooping up material from the rings and growing

Michael Irving March 29, 2019

Two years ago the Cassini probe flew past for a closer look at a few of Saturn's inner moons. Now a NASA team has analyzed the data and uncovered some intriguing new details about these tiny worlds, including how they’re busily scooping up material from Saturn’s rings and growing into weird shapes.

Newly-analyzed data from Cassini shows that Saturn's moons are scooping up material from the planet's rings ...

Space Audio available

Hubble watches a huge, dark storm gathering on Neptune

Michael Irving March 25, 2019

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is the most famous storm in the solar system, but similar ones are known to crop up on the other giant planets too. For the first time Hubble has watched one of these huge storms develop on Neptune, shedding new light on their origins.

Hubble images (left) taken in 2018 show the new dark storm in the north. Images taken ...

Space Audio available

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 ...

Space Audio available

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 ...

Space Audio available

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 ...

Space Audio available

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 ...