astronomy
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Astronomers Witness a Supermassive Black Hole Roaring to Life
Five years ago, a galaxy 300 million light-years away got a lot brighter in telescopes, radiating ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light out into space. This year, the resurgent galaxy started emitting X-rays, indicating that its initial brightening was really just a warmup. For the two decades before 2019, the galaxy was the same level of…
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Astronomers Spot New Aurora in the Gases Around Uranus
Feast your eyes on Uranus’ glowing edges. We’re serious—a team of astronomers has spotted a new aurora on the seventh planet from the Sun, glowing at infrared wavelengths. Ultraviolet aurorae were first spotted on the planet in 1986, but an infrared aurora had never been seen before. The aurora’s discovery was made with the Keck…
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Astronomers Surprised By a Distant Black Hole Roaring Back to Life
The distant object suddenly started feeding after a prolonged silence.
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Astronomers Uncover an Entirely New Way for Stars to Die
Gamma-ray bursts are extremely energetic explosions caused by some of the cosmos’ most remarkable objects: black holes, neutron stars, and the violent deaths of stars. Now, astronomers have found evidence of gamma-ray bursts emerging from the collisions of stars.