New Atlas

Space Audio available

NASA's newest mission to look for life's ingredients and probe the universe's deep past

Michael Irving February 13, 2019

NASA has selected the newest space mission for its Explorer program: the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx). The spacecraft will search for the ingredients of life in the Milky Way, and peer as far as 10 billion years back in time.

An artist's impression of SPHEREx, the mission NASA has just selected for its Explorers program

Space

The Milky Way galaxy is warped, according to new 3D map

Michael Irving February 4, 2019

Conventional wisdom has long held that the Milky Way was a flat disk of stars and gas, with a bulge in the middle. But now astronomers have created a more accurate 3D map of the galaxy and found that it’s more warped and twisted than previously thought.

An artist's impression of the warped shape of the Milky Way disk

Space

Hubble captures "lost light" to reveal deepest look into the universe yet

Michael Irving January 24, 2019

Astronomers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have re-processed an old Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) image to find new details. The end result is the deepest image ever taken of the universe from space.

The new Hubble Ultra Deep Field image reveals new details, thanks to the recovery of "lost ...

Space

Sharper images of a supermassive black hole reveal new secrets

Michael Irving January 23, 2019

A team of astronomers has used a global array of telescopes to peer through the fog and capture some of the clearest radio images yet of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. And it may indicate that the object just happens to be pointing directly at Earth.

An artist's rendition of a supermassive black hole, such as the one at the center of ...

Space Audio available

Brightest quasar ever found shines with the intensity of 600 trillion Suns

Michael Irving January 13, 2019

The Sun is a mere 10-watt bulb compared to quasars, extremely luminous galactic cores that shine so intensely thanks to their ravenous hunger for nearby material. Now, astronomers have detected the brightest quasar ever found, shining with the light of almost 600 trillion Suns.

An artist's rendering of the quasar J043947.08+163415.7, the brightest known quasar with the luminosity of 600 ...

Space

Hubble snaps gargantuan 665 million pixel mosaic of neighboring Triangulum Galaxy

Anthony Wood January 8, 2019

Astronomers have pieced together a massive mosaic of the nearby Triangulum Galaxy from images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Vast spiral galaxy is located just three million light-years from Earth, and can be seen by the naked eye on a clear night in a dark sky area.

The new release represents the second largest mosaic ever compiled from Hubble data

Space Audio available

Neighboring galaxy found to be on a collision course with the Milky Way

Michael Irving January 4, 2019

According to a new study, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy, is on a collision course with the Milky Way. But there’s no need to worry just yet – the starry smashup won’t begin for another two billion years or so.

An artist's imagining of the night sky from Earth as the Milky Way collides with neighboring ...

Space

The year's most spectacular space photos

Michael Irving December 19, 2018

The Sun is setting on 2018, and with so many eyes on (and in) the skies it’s been a stellar year for space photography. From mesmerizing nebulae to historic firsts to stunning views of Earth and other planets, New Atlas rounds up some of the best space photos of the year.

The Lagoon Nebula, a stellar nursery about 4,000 light-years from Earth, captured in visible light by ...

Physics

Dark matter and dark energy may really be one "dark fluid" with negative mass

Michael Irving December 5, 2018

An astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a “dark fluid” with negative mass that fills the universe.

A new theory suggests that the universe is filled with a dark fluid that has negative ...

Space Audio available

Star spotted on the brink of a gamma ray burst – and it's alarmingly close to Earth

Michael Irving November 19, 2018

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic events in the universe, second only to the Big Bang itself. We don’t usually get any warning, but now astronomers have spotted the telltale signs of a star system that could blow its lid any moment – and it’s far too close to Earth for comfort.