Institute of Astronomy

News and Press Releases

A 'galactic hailstorm' in the early Universe

Published on 15/01/2015 

Astronomers have been able to peer back to the young Universe to determine how quasars – powered by supermassive black holes with the mass of a billion suns – form and shape the evolution of galaxies.

Astronomers discover the ‘Mighty Mouse’ of stellar remnants

Published on 08/10/2014 

An international team of astronomers has found a pulsating, dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. This is the brightest pulsar – a dense stellar remnant left over from a supernova explosion – ever recorded.

The most detailed exoplanet weather map ever

Published on 01/10/2014 
In this artist illustration the Jupiter sized planet WASP-43b orbits its parent star in what is one of the closest orbits ever measured for an exoplanet of its size — with a year lasting just 19 hours. The planet is tidally locked meaning it keeps one hemisphere facing the star, just as our Moon keeps one face toward Earth. The colour gradient on the planet represents the temperature across its atmosphere. This is based on data from a recent study that mapped the temperature of WASP-43b in more detail than has been done for any other exoplanet. Credit ESA, NASA.

Clear skies on exo-Neptune

Published on 23/09/2014 

This is an artist's concept of the silhouette of the extrasolar planet HAT-P-11b as it passes its parent star. The planet was observed as it crossed in front of its star in order to learn more about its atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Gaia discovers its first supernova

Published on 12/09/2014 

Image caption: An artist’s impression of a Type Ia supernova – the explosion of a white dwarf locked in a binary system with a companion star (Credit: ESA/ATG medialab/C. Carreau). The inset figure shows a low-resolution spectrum obtained with the photometric instrument on Gaia of the supernova. (Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC/N. Blagorodnova).