New research led by Penn State astronomers improves understanding of why very large planets called super-Earths, with small, quick orbits, form so close to their host stars.
Data recorded by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of a neutron star as it passed through a dense patch of stellar wind emanating from its massive companion star provide valuable insight about the structure and composition of stellar winds.
A report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine sets the stage for Penn State's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds to expand its role in NASA's exoplanetary science initiatives.
Chris Palma, teaching professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been honored with the 2018 C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching by the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society.
An unusual infrared emission detected by the Hubble Space Telescope from a nearby neutron star could indicate that the pulsar has features never before seen. The observation could help astronomers better understand the evolution of neutron stars.
Joseph Masiero, a staff scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will give a free presentation titled "You Can't Make a Solar System without Breaking a Few Asteroids" at 7:30 p.m. April 10 in 100 Thomas Building at University Park. The event is part of the 2017-18 Friedman Lecture Series in Astronomy.
Penn State researchers will participate in a new international multilaboratory and multiuniversity collaboration that harnesses the unusual characteristics of the elusive subatomic particles known as antineutrinos for nuclear nonproliferation.
NASA will launch a suborbital sounding rocket carrying a Penn State-led experiment to test a newly developed X-ray spectrograph and study the X-rays from a supernova remnant in the Milky Way galaxy.
The growth of the biggest black holes in the universe is outrunning the growth of the galaxies they inhabit, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State.
For the first time, a science experiment has measured Earth's ability to absorb neutrinos — the smaller-than-an-atom particles that zoom throughout space and through us by the trillions every second at nearly the speed of light.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced a $16 million grant to support the next generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V) — a project including Penn State scientists that is one of the most successful and influential efforts to map the universe in the history of astronomy.
Astronomers at Penn State have used the Hubble Space Telescope to find a blistering-hot giant planet outside our solar system where the atmosphere "snows" titanium dioxide — the active ingredient in sunscreen. This discovery, and other observations made by the Penn State team, provide insight into the complexity of weather and atmospheric composition on exoplanets, and may someday be useful for gauging the habitability of Earth-size planets.
A new, low-cost attachment to telescopes allows previously unachievable precision in ground-based observations of exoplanets -- planets beyond our solar system. With the new attachment, ground-based telescopes can produce measurements of light intensity that rival the highest quality photometric observations from space.
Penn State scientists and students on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory team (LIGO) are celebrating three LIGO leaders who have been honored with the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selected the three -- Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne -- "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves," which were predicted more than a century ago by Albert Einstein but were impossible to detect until the LIGO detectors accomplished the feat in 2015.
Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, was honored as the third laureate of the Bohdan Paczynski Medal, the highest distinction awarded by the Polish Astronomical Society. The Bohdan Paczynski Medal is awarded for exceptional achievements in astronomy and astrophysics every other year.
