A research team, led by astronomers from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), has discovered 591 high velocity stars based on data from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and Gaia, and 43 of them can even escape from the Galaxy. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chinese-astronomers-high-velocity-stars-lamost.html…
Tag: observatories
Was this mystery radio signal really from Proxima Centauri?
Astronomers with Breakthrough Listen have detected a mysterious radio signal coming from the direction of the nearest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri. But is it really an alien signal or something more terrestrial? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/wow-signal-2020-blc1-proxima-centauri…
Direct image of newly discovered brown dwarf captured
Astronomers using two Maunakea Observatories—Subaru Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory—have discovered a key benchmark brown dwarf orbiting a sun-like star just 86 light-years from Earth that provides a key reference point for understanding the properties of the first directly-imaged exoplanets. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-image-newly-brown-dwarf-captured.html…
Watch: 25 years of the sun
This video, merging more than 2 decades of footage from SOHO cameras, captures thousands of sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections breaking out from the sun. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/sun-25-years-video-solar-flare-cme-sunspot…
Did the Wow! signal come from this star?
Where did the famous mystery Wow! signal, detected in 1977, come from? Astronomer Alberto Caballero might have pinpointed the host star. It’s a sunlike star 1,800 light-years away, in the direction to the center of our Milky Way. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/source-of-wow-signal-in-1977-sunlike-star-2mass-19281982-2640123…
Faint super-planet discovered by radio telescope
For the first time, astronomers have used observations from a radio telescope and a pair of observatories on Maunakea to discover and characterize a cold brown dwarf, also known as a “super planet” or “failed star.” The discovery, designated BDR J1750+3809, is the first substellar object detected through radio observations—until now, brown dwarfs have largely been found from infrared sky surveys….
Astronomers release a black hole family portrait
“Black hole family portrait” is a fancy way of saying “new catalog.” But it’s a very important and exciting catalog, released October 28, 2020 by gravitational wave astronomers, containing 39 new signals from black hole or neutron star collisions. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/ligo-virgo-new-catalog-gwtc-2-black-hole-family-portrait…
Super-Earth and sub-Neptune found orbiting a red dwarf star
Astronomers using a telescope in Mexico have found two more exoplanets – a super-Earth and a sub-Neptune – orbiting a red dwarf star 120 light-years from Earth. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/super-earth-sub-neptune-orbiting-red-dwarf-star-toi-1266…
Metal-poor globular cluster forces astronomers to rethink theories
The discovery of the most metal-poor globular cluster recorded to date has forced scientists to rethink how both galaxies and globular clusters form. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/metal-poor-globular-cluster-ext8-found-in-andromeda-galaxy…
LAMOST releases its sixth data internationally
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) published its sixth Data Release (DR6 v2) to astronomers worldwide on Sept. 30, according to the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. DR6 v2 includes all the spectra obtained during the pilot survey through the sixth-year regular survey. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-lamost-sixth-internationally.html…