Using the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT), an international team of astronomers have performed long-term photometric observations of a luminous blazar known as Ton 599. Results of the observations, published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal, shed more light on the optical variability of this object.

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Using new observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories, astronomers have tracked the influence of a recently discovered companion star, Siwarha, on the gas around Betelgeuse. The research, by scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), reveals a trail of dense gas swirling through Betelgeuse’s vast, extended atmosphere, shedding […]

A team using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object—a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud that is considered a “relic” or remnant of early galaxy formation. Nicknamed “Cloud-9,” this is the first confirmed detection of such an object in the universe. The finding, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, furthers […]

An international team of astronomers has uncovered multiple evolutionary paths for the universe’s most massive galaxies. Observations of ultramassive galaxies, each containing more than 100 billion stars, show that less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang, some had already stopped forming stars and lost their dust, while others continued forming stars hidden behind […]

Nearly every galaxy has a supermassive black hole in its core. Whether the black hole forms first and then the galaxy around it—or the other way around—is still a matter of some debate, but we know the evolution of both are deeply connected. We can use that relationship to study the black holes.

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So far, humanity has yet to find its first “exomoon”—a moon orbiting a planet outside of the solar system. But that hasn’t been for lack of trying. According to a new paper by Thomas Winterhalder of the European Southern Observatory and his co-authors, which is available on the arXiv preprint server, the reason isn’t because […]