Supernovae are the brilliant, explosive deaths of stars. For a short time, these explosions can outshine an entire galaxy containing billions of stars. A recently discovered rare class of supernovae, termed…
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Articles on Astronomy
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Australian astronomer Ken Freeman has won the 2012 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, more than 40 years after he revolutionised his field with his research on dark matter. Professor Freeman, the Duffield…
A new study of data from NASA’s Hubble telescope shows that the distant star Fomalhaut b really is a massive exoplanet and squashes claims made last year that it was just a dust cloud, researchers said…
Earlier this week, a Swiss-based team searching for planets outside our solar system (exoplanets) published a paper in Nature announcing the detection of an Earth-mass planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri…
Today, after several years of design and construction, CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is officially open. The A$140m facility, built in the remote Murchison Shire of Western…
New research published in the planetary science journal Icarus, shows the moon may have been formed by a glancing collision with an “impactor” in the violent days of the early solar system. Contrary to…
It is no longer the case that the Milky Way is “one of a kind”. The first groups of galaxies resembling the Milky Way and…
Last week, scientists using one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Cameras announced the discovery of a small moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto - the fifth satellite discovered in orbit around…
Explosive outbursts of super-hot gas in a galaxy 300 million light-years away have provided evidence of the first known “middleweight” black hole, according to scientists who observed the plasma jets with…
Humans have always had a deep affinity with the night sky. Over millennia the stars have guided us in our travels, provided a grand canvas for the great stories of mythology and invoked a sense of wonder…
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned data that indicate ice may account for as much as 22% of…
The 6½-hour journey of Venus across the path of the sun has enthralled thousands of Australians gathered at viewing locations to witness the event. Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Brian Schmidt, a Distinguished…
Update: to observers on Australia’s eastern seaboard, the transit of Venus is now complete. The two time-lapse videos below, provided by the University of Queensland, show Venus first passing in front…
On Wednesday, as you’ll no doubt know by now, a rare celestial event will occur. Venus will pass between the earth and the sun - the transit of Venus. You might also already know that this cosmic spectacle…
When Australia II won the America’s Cup yacht race in 1983, then-prime-minister Bob Hawke famously exclaimed: “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.” Taking inspiration from this…
Late last week, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) board chairman, John Womersley, announced that the future telescope will have more than one home: Australia/New Zealand and South Africa. The announcement…
You’ll remember that, about a year ago, Canadian astronomers announced the discovery of a small asteroid sharing the earth’s orbit. The asteroid in question, 2010 TK7, is a “planetary Trojan” – an object…
A group of 675 stars has been discovered on the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy, having been shot out by the black hole…
An Antarctic observatory studying gamma ray bursts (GRBs) has failed to detect neutrino emissions, possibly ruling out the…
The sun’s energy can be stored in large blocks of lunar soil (called regolith), potentially powering technology on a future…
Top contributors
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Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland
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Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria and Honorary Fellow at University of Melbourne, Museums Victoria Research Institute
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Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Professor, University of Sydney
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Professor, School of Science, Western Sydney University
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John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University
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Pro Vice-Chancellor Flagship Initiatives, Swinburne University of Technology
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Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University
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Lecturer in Astronomy, Nottingham Trent University
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Dean of Science, University of California, Santa Cruz
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Associate professor, The University of Western Australia
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Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology
