astronomy

“We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the supermassive black hole,” said UCLA professor Andrea Ghez.

Does the physicist’s theory tell the full story? A detailed analysis of a star’s orbit near supermassive black hole gives a look into how gravity behaves.

UCLA astronomer Mark Morris and an international team of collaborators found that the two plumes extend over 500 light-years.

At the heart of the dispute is the Hubble constant, a number that relates distances to the redshifts of galaxies — the amount that light is stretched as it travels to Earth.

A team of scientists that includes two UCLA College researchers published a study in Nature Communications that sheds light on the phenomenon.

“It was a rare case in astronomy where two competing models ... offered precisely opposite predictions,” said UCLA professor Steven Furlanetto.

Scientists have long been interested in Europa because evidence suggests that a vast ocean lies beneath its icy outer shell.

“I’ve been studying young stars near Earth for 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like this one,” said UCLA astronomer Benjamin Zuckerman.

Titan’s liquid methane rain appears to play a major role in shaping its icy surface, and the downpours are much more common than researchers expected.

The astronomers identified a “special comet” called K2 traveling from beyond Saturn’s orbit — the farthest active inbound comet ever seen.

Andrea Ghez is an astronomy professor and pre-eminent scholar on the role of black holes in the evolution of galaxies.

The new hypothesis doesn’t rely on the “unlikely coincidences” that underpin other theories explaining primordial black holes.

More than 1,000 people filled the Court of Sciences on Monday to view the partial eclipse of the sun.

Scientists had assumed the core was rotating at about the same speed as the surface, but this surprising observation might reveal what the sun was like when it formed.

An international team of astronomers has observed a striking spiral pattern in the gas surrounding a red giant star called LL Pegasi and its companion star 3,400 light-years from Earth.

A “baby” solar system 300 light-years away has given astrophysicists from UCLA and the Carnegie Institution for Science a rare peek at the formation of a planet.

A UCLA-led team of scientists discovered a white dwarf star in the constellation Boötes whose atmosphere is rich in carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen.

UCLA’s Jonathan Aurnou and collaborators in Marseille, France, demonstrated that the planet’s jets likely extend thousands of miles below its visible atmosphere.

The Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation is given for outstanding design, invention or significant improvement of instrumentation leading to advances in astronomy.

A UCLA-led research team reports that the moon is at least 4.51 billion years old and probably formed only about 60 million years after the birth of the solar system — 40 million to 140 million years earlier than had been thought.

UCLA professor Henry Kelly examines historical canonical legal procedures to correct the popular myths around the Italian astronomer’s belief in a sun-centered solar system.

The new observations confirm a long-standing theory that stars are copious producers of heavy elements.

The cutting-edge project that includes renowned scientists will tackle major challenges in the physical sciences, life sciences and engineering.

The team, led by a UCLA researcher, used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to gather data on Comet 332P as it broke apart 67 million miles from Earth.

Kepler-62f could have atmospheric compositions that allow it to be warm enough to have surface liquid water, which would make it possible for the planet to support life.