Extragalactic astronomy
Study of astronomical objects outside the Milky Way Galaxy
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We include updates on WOH G64, Cosmic dust, R136a1, Galaxy morphological classification, WHL0137-LS, BAT99-98, Interstellar cloud, Satellite galaxy, Interacting galaxy, Intracluster medium, Lyman-alpha blob, Hubble sequence, Density wave theory, N6946-BH1, Tully–Fisher relation, Intergalactic star ... and more.
| 2025 |
Space dust measurement
Launch of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) carrying the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX), developed by Mihaly Horanyi and colleagues at LASP, to study dust particles in orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.
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| 2024 |
WOH G64
The dusty torus around WOH G64 was directly imaged by the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), marking the first interferometric imaging of a star outside the Milky Way, revealing elongated and compact emission around the hypergiant star.
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| 2024 |
WOH G64
A preprint revealed that WOH G64 is a symbiotic star with a smaller B-type companion, and documented its change from semiregular to irregular variability.
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| 2024 |
Space dust measurement
Launch of the Europa Clipper mission, which will carry the Surface Dust Analyser (SUDA) developed by Sacha Kempf and colleagues at LASP to study Jupiter's moon Europa and search for plumes.
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| 2024 |
Space dust measurement
Launch of the DESTINY+ mission to asteroid 3200 Phaethon, carrying the Dust Analyzer (DDA) led by Ralf Srama and colleagues from the University of Stuttgart to analyze interstellar and interplanetary dust.
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| 2023 |
HD 37836
A scientific paper estimated the star's luminosity at 4.2 million solar luminosities, with a temperature of 28,200 K and a radius of 85 solar radii, comparable to Rigel.
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| August 8 2023 |
WHL0137-LS
Hubble and Webb telescopes jointly detect Earendel's colors, revealing it as a massive B-type star more than twice as hot as the Sun and about a million times more luminous.
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| December 2022 |
Intracluster medium
The James Webb Space Telescope began studying the faint light emitted in the intracluster medium, advancing our understanding of its properties and composition.
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| July 30 2022 |
WHL0137-LS
James Webb Space Telescope captures first image of Earendel during its initial imaging campaign.
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| March 30 2022 |
WHL0137-LS
Discovery of Earendel officially reported by the Hubble Space Telescope team.
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| January 2022 |
Rogue black hole
Astronomers reported the first unambiguous detection and mass measurement of an isolated stellar black hole (OGLE-2011-BLG-0462/MOA-2011-BLG-191) using the Hubble Space Telescope, Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The black hole is located 5,000 light-years away, has a mass of 7.1 solar masses, and moves at approximately 45 km/s.
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| 2021 |
Space dust measurement
A model for the generation of signals on plasma wave antennas by dust impacts was presented, based on dust accelerator tests.
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| 2020 |
Space dust measurement
Chang'e 5 mission collected 1.7 kg of lunar material.
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| 2020 |
R136a1
R136a1 lost its status as the most massive and luminous star known after being recognized as such for a decade.
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| September 2020 |
Cosmic dust
Scientists presented evidence of solid-state water in the interstellar medium, specifically discovering water ice mixed with silicate grains in cosmic dust grains.
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| 2019 |
Cosmic dust
Researchers discovered interstellar dust in Antarctica, linked to the Local Interstellar Cloud, by measuring radionuclides iron-60 and manganese-53 using Accelerator mass spectrometry.
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| November 27 2019 |
WHL0137-LS
Fourth Hubble Space Telescope exposure of Earendel.
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| November 4 2019 |
WHL0137-LS
Third Hubble Space Telescope exposure of Earendel.
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| 2018 |
WOH G64
Spectroscopic measurements updated the star's luminosity and effective temperature based on optical and infrared photometry.
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| 2018 |
SDSS J1229+1122
Became the second most distant-known star after the discovery of MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1 (Icarus), which surpassed its previous record.
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| 2018 |
HD 37836
Included in a census of Luminous Blue Variables as a candidate LBV, further solidifying its classification in stellar research.
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| 2018 |
Intracluster medium
A study found the intracluster medium to be an 'accurate luminous tracer of dark matter', providing significant insights into the composition of galaxy clusters.
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| June 2018 |
Space dust measurement
Hayabusa2 mission rendezvoused with asteroid 162173 Ryugu and collected approximately 5g of surface and sub-surface material.
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| May 2018 |
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1
Confirmation that the star's light was emitted when the universe was approximately 30% of its current age (13.8 billion years), making it one of the most distant stars ever detected.
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| April 2018 |
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1
Astronomer Patrick Kelly led the discovery of the star, which was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The star was found to be a blue supergiant magnified over 2,000 times by gravitational lensing.
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| September 2016 |
Space dust measurement
Rosetta space probe concluded its mission orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
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| July 17 2016 |
WHL0137-LS
Second Hubble Space Telescope exposure capturing Earendel's light.
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| June 7 2016 |
WHL0137-LS
Hubble Space Telescope first exposed to Earendel's light during astronomical observation.
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| May 2016 |
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1
Gravitational microlensing event peaked, significantly brightening the star's image by a factor of approximately 4. A second brightness peak suggested the star might be binary.
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| 2014 |
WOH G64
WOH G64 began shrinking in size, transforming from a red supergiant to a smaller yellow hypergiant, reducing to approximately half its previous size.
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| August 2014 |
Space dust measurement
Rosetta space probe began orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko to analyze its nucleus, dust, gas, and plasma environments.
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| 2013 |
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1
A point source (the star) was first detected in Hubble Space Telescope images.
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| 2010 |
R136a1
R136a1 was recognized as the most massive and luminous star known, a status it maintained until 2020.
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| June 2010 |
Space dust measurement
Hayabusa mission returned to Earth, successfully bringing thousands of 10-100 micron sized asteroid particles.
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| May 2010 | Scientists announced the integration of Herschel Space Observatory's infrared data into the GOODS dataset, utilizing PACS and SPIRE instruments to identify sources for the Cosmic Infrared Background. |
| January 2010 | Herschel Space Observatory observed the GOODS-South field, further expanding the survey's data collection. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles WHL0137-LS, WOH G64, Space dust measurement, Cosmic dust, Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, MilkyWay@home, Intracluster medium, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, Rogue black hole, HD 37836, SDSS J1229+1122 & R136a1, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.