Mystery Solved Astronomy

Here’s what really happened to Hanny’s Voorwerp

Astronomers can finally explain a gas cloud’s strange glow

Hanny’s Voorwerp

GLOWING GAS  Hanny’s Voorwerp, the greenish smudge at the left of this image, is glowing thanks to photons from a feasting black hole in the galaxy at right.

NASA, ESA, W. Keel (Univ. Alabama), et al., Galaxy Zoo Team

By Lisa Grossman

This article is only available to Science News subscribers.

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.

Not a subscriber?

Science News is a nonprofit.

Support us by subscribing now.

More Stories from Science News on Astronomy

  1. four images of Betelgeuse before and during its Great Dimming
    Astronomy

    Dust and a cold spell on Betelgeuse could explain why the giant star dimmed

    By Lisa Grossman
  2. simulation of gravitational waves from two merging black holes
    Physics

    Gravitational waves confirm a black hole law predicted by Stephen Hawking

    By Emily Conover
  3. planet orbiting star WASP-79
    Space

    Most planets on tilted orbits pass over the poles of their suns

    By Ken Croswell
  4. Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope
    Astronomy

    An arc of galaxies 3 billion light-years long may challenge cosmology

    By Lisa Grossman
  5. side-by-side comparison of images of a galaxy
    Astronomy

    Some fast radio bursts come from the spiral arms of other galaxies

    By Lisa Grossman
  6. LHAASO observatory
    Astronomy

    Record-breaking light has more than a quadrillion electron volts of energy

    By Emily Conover
  7. a purple/orange cloud with bright stars sprinkled throughout on a black background
    Astronomy

    Watch this beautiful, high-resolution simulation of how stars are born

    By Maria Temming
  8. image of Milky Way
    Astronomy

    The Milky Way may have grown up faster than astronomers suspected

    By Lisa Grossman

From the Nature Index

Paid Content