Orion is one of the most famous constellations in the night sky. Orion, "the Hunter" is arguably the most recognizable constellation in the world. It lies on the celestial equator, making it visible from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Orion’s shape is very easy to tell because it has many bright stars and of course its signature Belt, three stars system which are together in a nearly straight line.One of the most obvious features people see in...

The object we call now SN 1006 which 1st appeared on May 1, 1006 A.D was the brightest observed stellar event in recorded history, reaching an estimated −7.5 visual magnitude. It was far brighter than Venus and visible during the daytime for weeks, exceeding roughly sixteen times the brightness of Venus. Appearing between April 30 and May 1, 1006 AD in the constellation of Lupus. This "Guest Star" was described by Astronomers in China, Japan, Europe,...

The Fermi Large Area Telescope can detect a brightening or appearance of a gamma ray source, even toward the bright steady glow of our Galaxy. This allows the study of transient and variable Galactic sources that were very difficult to see with Fermi's predecessors. Many of these new sources have been a complete surprise like the novae discussed in last week's post.This animation demonstrates the way that the Large Area Telescopenormally sweeps across the...

An artist's impression of the quasar Pōniuāʻena, the first quasar to receive an Indigenous Hawaiian name.(Image: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld) Maunakea, Hawai‘i – Astronomers have discovered the second-most distant quasar ever found using three Maunakea Observatories in Hawai‘i: W. M. Keck Observatory, the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, and the University of Hawai‘i-owned United Kingdom Infrared...

This illustration shows magnetic field lines protruding from a highly magnetic neutron star, or a dense nugget left over after a star goes supernova and explodes. Known as magnetars, these objects generate bright bursts of light that might be powered by their strong magnetic fields. Credits: ESA Astronomers tend to have a slightly different sense of time than the rest of us. They regularly study events that happened millions or billions of years...

Did you know that many of the galaxies, nebulas and star clusters observed by the Hubble Space Telescope can also be seen in backyard telescopes? A new gallery of Hubble images highlights some of these celestial objects visible to amateur and professional astronomers alike. All of the objects are from a collection known as the Caldwell catalog, assembled by English amateur astronomer and science communicator Sir Patrick Caldwell-Moore and published in December...

"Super-Puffs" may sound like a new breakfast cereal. But it's actually the nickname for a unique and rare class of young exoplanets that have the density of cotton candy. Nothing like them exists in our solar system. This illustration depicts the Sun-like star Kepler 51 and three giant planets that NASA's Kepler space telescope discovered in 2012–2014. These planets are all roughly the size of Jupiter but a tiny fraction of its mass. This means the planets...