compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

-NOIRLab

Amazon Satellites Add to Astronomers’ Worries About the Sky Welcome to the age of the satellite megaconstellation. Within the next few years, vast networks, containing hundreds or even thousands of spacecraft, could reshape the future of Earth’s orbital environment. Much of the attention on these strings of satellites has been placed on the prolific launches of SpaceX and OneWeb, but the focus is now turning to Amazon…more

– Jamie Law-Smith and Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz

New observations of black hole devouring a star  Astronomers have found a previously unseen type of object circling a distant star. It could be the core of a gas world like Jupiter, offering an unprecedented glimpse inside one of these giant planets. Giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn have a solid planetary core beneath a thick envelope of hydrogen and helium gas…more

-NASA/JPL-Caltech

Where Are Stars Made? NASA’s Spitzer Spies a Hot Spot. The most massive stars in the universe are born inside cosmic clouds of gas and dust, where they leave behind clues about their lives for astronomers to decode. The nebula known as W51 is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. First identified in 1958 by radio telescopes, it makes a rich cosmic tapestry in this image…more

-NASA, ESA, 

Hubble Maps Giant Halo Around Andromeda Galaxy  In a landmark study, scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the immense envelope of gas, called a halo, surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor…more

– NASA/JPL

Scientists find closest known asteroid to fly by Earth  On August 16, 2020, the Zwicky Transient Facility, a robotic survey camera located at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, spotted an asteroid that had, just hours earlier, traveled only 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Designated 2020 QG, the asteroid is the closest known to fly by Earth…more

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P.Marenfeld/William Pendrill

Citizen Scientists Discover Dozens of New Cosmic Neighbors We’ve never met some of the Sun’s closest neighbors until now. In a new study, astronomers report the discovery of 95 objects known as brown dwarfs, many within a few dozen light-years of the Sun. They’re well outside the solar system, so don’t experience heat from the Sun, but still inhabit a region astronomers consider our cosmic neighborhood…more

-ALMA ( ESO / NAOJ / NRAO ), Rizzo et al.

A distant Milky Way look-alike                                                 Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have revealed an extremely distant and therefore very young galaxy that looks surprisingly like our Milky Way. The galaxy is so far away its light has taken more than 12 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was just 1.4 billion years old…more

-BBC

Astronomy photographer of the year 2020 shortlist
A competition to find the best pictures of space, has shared a shortlist of the top 35 images entered into the competition. Around 5,200 entries were sent in to The Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020, from 70 countries around the world! This one was taken by Andy Casely who lives in Australia, using a special telescope and a camera….more