STScI, Baltimore, MD-(ENEWSPF)- Using NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, astronomers have uncovered tantalizing evidence for what could be the first discovery of a possible moon orbiting a planet outside our solar system. This moon candidate, which is 8,000 light-years from Earth in the Cygnus constellation, orbits a gas-giant planet[Read More…]

Baltimore, Maryland—(ENEWSPF)—April 3, 2018 By: Ann Jenkins, Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, and Patrick Kelly, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities More than halfway across the universe, an enormous blue star nicknamed Icarus is the farthest individual star ever seen. Normally, it would be much too faint to view,[Read More…]

Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—March 19, 2018 By: Felicia Chou and Claire Saravia Join NASA at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, March 28, as astrophysics experts discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.[Read More…]

CALIFORNIA—(ENEWSPF)—February 5, 2018 By: Elizabeth Landau In the year since NASA announced the seven Earth-sized planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system, scientists have been working hard to better understand these enticing worlds just 40 light-years away. Thanks to data from a combination of space- and ground-based telescopes, we know more about[Read More…]

Baltimore, MD-(ENEWSPF)- In an unprecedented deep survey for small, faint objects in the Orion Nebula, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered the largest known population of brown dwarfs sprinkled among newborn stars. Looking in the vicinity of the survey stars, researchers not only found several very-low-mass brown dwarf[Read More…]

An illustration portrays what distant star-formation regions might look like up close. According to new research, the regions are clumpy and span about 200 to 300 light-years, contradicting earlier theories. Courtesy of: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI) CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–July 6, 2017.  When it comes to the distant universe, even the[Read More…]

STScI-(ENEWSPF)- Is it a case of nature versus nurture when it comes to two “cousin” exoplanets? In a unique experiment, scientists used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study two “hot Jupiter” exoplanets. Because these planets are virtually the same size and temperature, and orbit around nearly identical stars at the[Read More…]

By Sean Nealon RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — A molecule found in car engine exhaust fumes that is thought to have contributed to the origin of life on Earth has made astronomers heavily underestimate the amount of stars that were forming in the early Universe, a University of California, Riverside-led study[Read More…]