Astronomy News

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images showcases the galaxy NGC 2217.ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton; Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

The magnificent central bar of NGC 2217 (also known as AM 0619-271) shines bright in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog), in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Roughly 65 million light-years from Earth, this barred spiral galaxy is a similar size to our Milky Way at 100,000 light-years across. Many stars are concentrated in its central region forming the luminous bar, surrounded by a set of tightly wound spiral arms.

The central bar in these types of galaxies plays an important role in their evolution, helping to funnel gas from the disk into the middle of the galaxy. The transported gas and dust are then either formed into new stars or fed to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center. Weighing from a few hundred to over a billion times the mass of our Sun, supermassive black holes are present in almost all large galaxies.

This image was colorized with data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).

Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Before it shattered over Germany, the asteroid 2024 BX1 was clocked rotating once every 2.6 seconds – the fastest spin we have observed

Science, Volume 384, Issue 6694, Page 369-370, April 2024.

A Tokyo company's satellite encounters a big lump of space debris high above the Earth.

Today, Aisén Etcheverry, the Chilean Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, accompanied by Gonzalo Arenas, the Ministry’s Head of International Relations and Maria Soledad Morales, Chilean Consul to Bavaria and Baden-Wütternberg visited the ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany. The visit, the first of a Chilean science minister to ESO’s facilities in Germany, provided an opportunity to further strengthen ties between ESO and Chile. The close collaborative relationship between ESO and Chile goes back over 60 years and has allowed the organisation to operate its telescopes at unique observing sites in Chile, while generating business opportunities and contributing to the development of Chilean astronomy. 

The visitors were hosted by ESO Director General, Xavier Barcons, and ESO’s ‎Head of the Executive Office of the Director General & Head of Legal and Institutional Affairs, Laura Comendador Frutos. Following an opening presentation about ESO’s value chain and its societal impact by Barcons, ESO staff gave presentations on topics including technology development, opportunities for industry and science data management at ESO. The Chile delegation later had exchanges with several ESO staff members, including the Chilean staff working at the ESO Headquarters. 

After the presentations, Minister Etcheverry and her delegation were given a tour of the facilities at the Garching site, including a stop at ESO’s Large Integration Hall. This is where some telescope components, including those for the upcoming ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, are prepared and tested.  

ESO Director General Xavier Barcons said: "Chile has been a partner and host state to ESO for over 60 years, and we are very honoured to welcome Science Minister Etcheverry to our headquarters in Garching. This visit is an exciting opportunity to explore ways to strengthen our international collaboration, for the benefit of both ESO and Chile." 

Minister Aisén Etcheverry said: "Chile is renowned as the global astronomical capital, and behind the remarkable scientific discoveries lies a tremendous amount of engineering, electronics, and digital technologies development that numerous Chilean men and women contribute to. To gain deeper insights into these experiences and prepare for a future joint industry day, we visited the ESO headquarters in Garching to acquire firsthand knowledge of the cutting-edge technological advancements that will undoubtedly hold immense interest for the Chilean industry."

Nature, Published online: 25 April 2024; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01223-0

The Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe doubles the resolution of Apollo-era maps and will support the space ambitions of China and other countries.

The redness of asteroid 469219 Kamo‘oalewa marks it out as probably originating on the moon, and now we might know the exact impact crater it was launched from

The supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies may capture smaller black holes. Not only does this prove a place for the small black holes to grow, it also makes the supermassive ones look even bigger and brighter

3 min read

Sols 4166-4167: A Garden Full of Rocks This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4164 (2024-04-23 16:43:09 UTC). NASA/JPL-Caltech

Earth planning date: Wednesday April 24, 2024

Here on Earth (in Toronto, specifically), it’s a very typical April which can’t quite make up its mind about whether or not it wants to be spring. On Mars (in Gale Crater), we’re well into spring, and Curiosity is enjoying the (relatively) warmer weather. As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, I find myself with lots of energy, itching to get outside and play in my garden. Curiosity seems to feel similar – we’ve been flush with power recently, and today’s touch-and-go plan is no exception. This means lots of opportunity for Curiosity to play in its own kind of garden – albeit one a bit less green than my own.

The first sol of the plan starts with contact science on ‘Twin Peaks,’ which is a small, darker block on top of a lighter block (which you can see the edge of in the image above). This is followed by a two hour long science block packed full of ChemCam and Mastcam observations. ChemCam is starting up close with LIBS on ‘Gilber Lake’ (in the centre of the image above) followed by two long distance mosaics of our long-time companions, the upper Gediz Vallis Ridge and Kukenan. Mastcam has its own mosaic of Pinnacle Ridge and then turns its sights to two closer blocks – ‘Hawk’s Head Notch’ and ‘Cleaver Notch.’ We’re then back for more contact science – this time with MAHLI – before driving on towards Pinnacle Ridge. It’s a geology-heavy sol, but the atmosphere and environment science theme group (ENV) will sneak in to take a tau measurement at the end of the sol to keep an eye on the changing atmospheric dust.

As is often the case in these kinds of plans, the second sol is a bit more sedate, but Curiosity will still manage to squeeze in nearly an hour and a half of science. Most of this is given over to environmental monitoring. Because we don’t need to be in a certain location to check out dust and clouds, we can let the geology and minerology science theme group (GEO) have their fun before the drive and save our observations for the ‘untargeted’ portion of the plan. On the dusty side of things, we have another tau as well as a line of sight scan towards the crater rim. A long dust devil movie will look out for dust lifting in the middle distance, and a deck monitoring observation will check out how dust grains on the rover’s deck might have moved. We’re also looking north above the horizon for clouds. GEO isn’t entirely left out of this sol though – they’ll wrap up the plan with a ChemCam AEGIS observation.

Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University

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Details Last Updated Apr 24, 2024 Related Terms

• Blogs
• Curiosity (Rover)
• Mars
• Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

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Nature, Published online: 24 April 2024; doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07285-4

We report observations of GRB 231115A, positionally coincident with the starburst galaxy M82, that unambiguously qualify this burst as a giant flare from a magnetar, which is a rare explosive event releasing gamma rays.

Nature, Published online: 24 April 2024; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01023-6

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In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The name ‘Little Dumbbell’ comes from its shape that is a two-lobed structure of colorful, mottled, glowing gases resembling a balloon that’s been pinched around a middle waist. Like an inflating balloon, the lobes are expanding into space from a dying star seen as a white dot in the center. Blistering ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the gases to glow. The red color is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen.NASA, ESA, STScI

To celebrate the 34th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch, the telescope captured an image of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, or M76. M76 is a planetary nebula, an expanding shell of glowing gases that were ejected from a dying red giant star that eventually collapses to an ultra-dense and hot white dwarf. It gets its descriptive name from its shape: a ring, seen edge-on as the central bar structure, and two lobes on either opening of the ring.

Since its launch in 1990 Hubble has made 1.6 million observations of over 53,000 astronomical objects. Most of Hubble’s discoveries were not anticipated before launch, such as supermassive black holes, the atmospheres of exoplanets, gravitational lensing by dark matter, the presence of dark energy, and the abundance of planet formation among stars.

Learn more about the Little Dumbbell Nebula and Hubble.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI

Nature, Published online: 22 April 2024; doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07412-1

Star Formation Shut Down by Multiphase Gas Outflow in a Galaxy at a Redshift of 2.45

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