In the 1960s, celebrated radio astronomer Frank Drake proposed his eponymous equation, which attempted to wrangle with the probability of finding extraterrestrial life — at least, the kind that we could identify through radio broadcasts — somewhere out there in the universe. One of the key parameters of that formulation is the rate of starContinue reading "Dark energy sheds light on life in the cosmos"
David Gluchowski, taken from Brooklyn, New York The Lion Nebula (Sharpless 2–132) is a faint emission nebula lit by young hot stars; their winds and radiation are expanding outward, forming shock waves that comprise many of the lion’s features. This shot also accentuates the play of light and shadow around the lion’s “head”. The imagerContinue reading "The Lion’s markings"
Google's Rise of the Half Moon November Google Doodle celebrates the lunar cycle with an interactive and educational card game challenging players to match cards according to different phases of the moon.
Astronomers have observed a galaxy ripping through galactic debris left by multiple collisions at a dangerous "cosmic crossroads" called Stephan's Quintet.
Scientists seeking the secrets of the universe would like to make a model that shows how all of nature’s forces and particles fit together. It would be nice to do it with Legos. But perhaps a better bet would be connecting everything with strings. Not literal strings, of course — but tiny loops or snippetsContinue reading "String theory is not dead yet"
When Michael Lopez-Alegria commanded the first privately funded crewed mission to visit the International Space Station, he traded his NASA "blues" for a "Deep Space" and "Mesosphere" flight suit.
A new recipe for making hydrogels delivers a material that is both flexible and semiconducting—desired properties for interfaces in implantable medical devices.
"The Space Gal" has become the 100th woman to fly into space. Emily Calandrelli lifted off as one of the six passengers aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket today (Nov. 22).
Astronomers have stumbled upon a pair of massive black holes in a distant galaxy that are triggering unusual bursts of light that may be caused by the black hole duo disrupting a massive gas cloud — a phenomenon researchers say is the first of its kind to be detected.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is well-known for discovering young, bright galaxies in the very early universe. How such regions, bursting with stars, formed so quickly and survived is enticing researchers to rethink cosmic evolution. A recent study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters uses JWST data to probeContinue reading "JWST spots more light than expected in the early universe"
The asteroid 2024 PT5 will leave Earth on Nov. 25 after visiting, but new analysis shows this temporary "second moon" may come from our original moon and, thus, from Earth itself.
Friday, November 22Last Quarter Moon occurs at 8:28 P.M. EST, leaving most of the evening dark for deep-sky observing. About two hours after sunset, you’ll find the Great Square of Pegasus high in the southeastern sky. The Winged Horse is home to a fabulous globular cluster, M15, which just barely hits naked-eye magnitude at 6.2.Continue reading "The Sky This Week from November 22 to 29: Venus lingers long after sunset"
In 1986, Voyager 2 flew by the ice giant Uranus. It was humanity’s first close-up view of the outer planet, and it remains the closest any spacecraft has ever come. On this trip, the spacecraft found 10 previously undiscovered moons, two rings, and a truly bizarre magnetic field that has baffled scientists ever since. MostContinue reading "Uranus may not have a weird magnetic field after all"
NASA and SpaceX released a new set of illustrations showing off how Starship might look as it lands astronauts on the moon during the Artemis 3 mission.
Three ultramassive galaxies found by the James Webb Space Telescope have astronomers reconsidering how galaxies grew so quickly in the first billion years after the Big Bang.
NASA is planning to assign SpaceX and Blue Origin 'demonstration missions' for their Artemis Program lunar landers, with eyes to put a habitat on the moon by 2033.
The James Webb Space Telescope has identified the first-ever "Einstein zig-zag," a distant quasar lensed six times by two precisely aligned galaxies that could help tackle a cosmological crisis.
The SubOrbital Express-4 mission, which will launch from northern Sweden between Nov. 22 and Dec. 3, will help scientists take the next step in various realms of research.
By manipulating and detecting nuclear spins in a tiny floating diamond, scientists have reported a record-long spin coherence time for a levitated system.
'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Season 5 episode 6 introduces new arrival Ensign Olly — a junior officer with a history of leaving trails of destruction in her wake.
When comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) was first discovered in late September, it was almost immediately identified as a member of the Kreutz family of Sun-grazing comets. But it was highly unusual for a Kreutz comet — virtually all of these are only discovered in their last hours or days of existence, as they plunge towardContinue reading "How Comet ATLAS fizzled out"
Astronomers have captured the first zoomed-in image of a star beyond the Milky Way. The historic image reveals a dying behemoth star wrapped in a death shroud of gas about to explode.
SpaceX's Starship megarocket performed well on its sixth test flight, which occurred on Tuesday (Nov. 19). So, what's next for the giant reusable vehicle?
با استفاده از مطالعهی جمعیت ستارهای۱ کهکشانها میتوان آنها را به دو دستهی کلی ستارهزا۲ و غیرستارهزا یا خاموش۳ طبقهبندی کرد. دستهی اول شامل کهکشانهایی است که جوان و در حال ستارهزایی هستند و دستهی دوم کهکشانهایی را شامل میشود که ستارهزایی در آنها متوقف شده است و جمعیت ستارهای پیرتری دارند. یکی از اهداف اصلی تلسکوپ فضایی جیمز وب۴، پاسخ به یکی از چالشبرانگیزترین سوالات در مطالعهی ساختار و تحول کهکشانها است: چگونگی شکلگیری سریع جرم کهکشانها در یک بازهی زمانی بسیار کوتاه، پایان یافتن ستارهزایی آنها و قرار گرفتن آنها در دستهی خاموش یا غیرستارهزا.
بر اساس تئوریهای موجود در زمینهی تحول کهکشانها پیشبینی میشود که برای مصرف تمام گاز مورد نیاز برای ستارهزایی به زمانی از مرتبهی میلیارد سال نیاز است (هر چند عواملی مانند بادهای ستارهای۵، بازخورد هستهی فعال کهکشانی۶، ادغام۷ و برهمکنش با دیگر کهکشانها میتوانند این فرآیند را تسریع کنند). در نتیجه انتظار میرود با نگاه کردن به فواصل دورتر (نگاه به گذشته در زمان) شاهد تعداد کمتری از کهکشانهای خاموش باشیم.
نویسندگان این مقاله با استفاده از دادههای به دست آمده از طیفسنج فروسرخ نزدیک تلسکوپ فضایی جیمز وب (NIRSpec) حضور یک کهکشان خاموش به نام GS-9209 با جرم ستارهای نزدیک به ۳۸ میلیون برابر جرم خورشید در انتقال به سرخ ۴/۶۵۸، تنها ۱/۲۵ میلیارد سال بعد از انفجار بزرگ۸ را گزارش میکنند. بر اساس مطالعات انجام شده توسط این گروه به نظر میرسد تمام جرم ستارهای این کهکشان تنها در یک بازهی زمانی ۲۰۰ میلیون ساله، قبل از به پایان رسیدن فعالیت ستارهزایی در انتقال به سرخ ۶/۵ معادل با زمانی که عمر کیهان تنها ۸۰۰ میلیون سال بودهاست، تشکیل شده باشد.
در این مقاله، نویسندگان خطوط جذبی طیف کهکشان GS-9209 را مطالعه کردهاند. بررسی خطوط جذبی طیف کهکشانها، یکی از روشهای مطالعهی تاریخچهی خاموشی کهکشانهای ستارهزا است. تصویر۱ طیف کهکشان GS-9209 را که توسط تلسکوپ فضایی جیمز وب رصد شدهاست، نشان میدهد. این طیف در بازهی طول موجی۵/۱ -۱/۷میکرومتر قرار دارد که شامل تعداد زیادی خطوط جذبی بالمر۹ (خط جذبی حاصل از گذار الکترون از تراز۲ به ترازهای بالاتر) است. طیف به دست آمده از این کهکشان خاموش با حضور این خطوط جذبی بالمر شباهت بسیار زیادی به طیف ستارگان نوع A داشته که با استفاده از آنها میتوان تحولات ستارهزایی را در طول زمانی از مرتبهی حدود ۱۰۰ میلیون سال بررسی کرد. به بیان سادهتر، این ستارگان اطلاعات مربوط به تغییرات ستارهزایی در طی ۱۰۰ میلیون سال اخیر را در بر دارند. حضور این جمعیت ستارهای یادآور کهکشانهای پساستارهزا۱۰ در انتقال به سرخهای پایینتر و نشاندهندهی پایان ستارهزایی در یک بازهی کوتاه، در حدود طول عمر ستارگان نوع A بر روی رشتهی اصلی است. نویسندگان این مقاله برای تعیین عمق هر کدام از این خطوط جذبی پهنای-همعرض۱۱ این خطوط را گزارش میکنند (پهنای-همعرض معیاری است که شدت یک خط جذبی را توصیف میکند). مطالعهی پهنای-همعرض خطوط مشاهده شدهی جذبی سری بالمر و پهنشدگی نسبی خط نشری نیتروژن-۲ نسبت به خط نشری پهن شدهی هیدروژن-آلفا (حاصل از گذار الکترون برانگیخته از تراز ۳ به ۲) به ترتیب نمایانگر غالب بودن جمعیت ستارهای در پیوستار و حضور هستهی فعال کهکشانی است.
شکل ۱. طیف گرفتهشده از GS-9209 با استفاده از طیفسنج تلسکوپ فضایی جیمز وب در ناحیهی فروسرخ نزدیک. خط سیاه مدل به دست آمده از کد Bagpipes برای برازش بر روی خطوط جذبی و نشری موجود در طیف را نمایش میدهد. این کد با بهرهگیری از آمار بیز و همچنین در برداشتن فرضیات گسترده در مورد تاریخچهی ستارهزایی برای مدل سازی طیف کهکشانها استفاده میشود.
شکل ۲. نرخ ستارهزایی کهکشان GS-9209 بر اساس تابعی از زمان. طبق این نمودار، کهکشان GS-9209، عمدهی جمعیت ستارهای خود را طی یک بازهی زمانی ۲۰۰ میلیون ساله، از حدود ۶۰۰ تا ۸۰۰ میلیون سال پس از انفجار بزرگ شکل دادهاست.
مطالعات خط نشری پهن شدهی هیدروژن-آلفا و نیتروژن-۲ بر روی طیف کهکشان GS-9209 نشان میدهد که این کهکشان دربردارندهی یک ابرسیاهچاله۱۲ با جرمی ۴-۵ برابر جرم قابل انتظار برای کهکشانهایی با جرم ستارهای مشابه GS-9209 است. بر اساس نتایج به دست آمده از بررسی تاریخچهی ستارهزایی در این کهکشان، میانگین نرخ ستارهزایی این کهکشان در ۱۰۰ میلیون سال گذشته تقریبا برابر با صفر است و این کهکشان را در دستهبندی غیرستارهزا قرار میدهد. بررسی بیشتر بر روی پیشینهی فعالیت این ابرسیاهچاله، بازخورد فعالیتهای ناشی از هستهی فعال کهکشانی را یکی از دلایل احتمالی برای توقف ستارهزایی در این کهکشان میداند. هستهی فعال کهکشانی باعث گرمایش گاز سرد (سوخت اصلی ستارهزایی) شده و کهکشانها را از حالت فعال ستارهزایی به حالت غیرفعال تبدیل میکند. GS-9209 یک نمونهی جالب توجه است که نشان میدهد تشکیل ساختارهای عظیمی مانند کهکشانها، در همان یک میلیارد سال اولیهی عالم و خاموشی ستارهزایی حداکثر تا ۸۰۰ میلیون سال بعد از انفجار بزرگ به خوبی صورت گرفتهاست.
۱. Stellar Population
۲. Star Forming
۳. Quiescent
۴. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
۵. Stellar Winds
۶.Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) Feedback
۷. Merger
۸. Big Bang
۹. Balmer Absorption Lines
۱۰. Post-Starburst Galaxies
۱۱. Equivalent Width
۱۲. Super Massive Blackhole
شکل بالای صفحه: گروه کهکشانی HCG 87. در این تصویر کهکشانهای ستارهزا و غیرستارهزا دیده میشوند. منبع: ویکیپدیا
عنوان اصلی مقاله: A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658
نویسندگان: Adam C. Carnall et al
لینک اصلی مقاله: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.11413
Scientists may have cracked one of the biggest mysteries in space science, determining that supermassive black holes bent the laws of physics to grow to their huge sizes.
While it did not recreate the historic Super Heavy booster catch it pulled off last time, SpaceX continued to push the envelope during the sixth test flight of its Starship spacecraft. The largest and most powerful rocket ever built lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad in Texas on Tuesday evening, Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines creating aContinue reading "SpaceX Starship Flight 6: No booster catch, but still pushing the envelope"
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The strength of dark energy in our universe is not optimized for forming stars, which means other universes might have a greater likelihood of producing life.
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In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing may shed its space business to focus on commercial aircraft and defense systems. This could be due in part to this summer’s test flight of its Starliner crew transport to the International Space Station (ISS), which adversely reshaped public opinion of the beleaguered aerospace titan. ButContinue reading "The past, present, and future of Boeing in space"
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In new testimony, the head of the Pentagon's UFO office told the US senate that it "has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology."
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President-Elect Donald Trump confirmed he will attend SpaceX Starship's 6th flight test on Nov. 19. It comes as SpaceX founder Elon Musk takes a greater role in the forthcoming Trump administration.
The game is afoot! Astronomers may have found some of the universe’s missing matter, thanks to one team’s cosmic detective work. The case has been open for more than 20 years. In the 1990s and early 2000s, scientists sleuthed out the universe’s contents using observations from the cosmic microwave background radiation and Big Bang models.Continue reading "Scientists discover significant ‘missing matter’ in the gas between galaxy clusters"
On Saturday, Nov. 16, in Flagstaff, Arizona, the astronomy world changed a bit. Lowell Observatory has long been a beacon of history in the cosmic universe. Here, Boston Brahmin Percival Lowell founded an institution to study the heavens from the far west in 1894. Here he famously studied Mars, an early obsession, believing it toContinue reading "Lowell Observatory celebrates a monumental renewal"
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The Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office will testify before the U.S. Senate on Tuesday (Nov. 19) about its latest report starting at 4:30 p.m. ET (2130 GMT).
New video ahead of SpaceX next Starship launch shows footage of a rendering versus reality of the Super Heavy booster performing its landing burn before being caught by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms.
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How big is the ellipse that our planet travels in a year around the Sun? J.J. MüdespacherMexico City, Mexico Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not circular, but an ellipse that is slightly elongated with an eccentricity of 0.017. (An eccentricity of 0 is a circle, while the dwarf planet Pluto has a relatively highContinue reading "How big is Earth’s orbit around the Sun?"
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The public can now step into the future of lunar exploration at Space Center Houston by entering an early mockup for Northrop Grumman's Gateway astronaut accommodations around the moon.
A new study suggests galaxies in the early universe appear much larger and brighter than expected, precisely as predicted by modified Newtonian dynamics, or MOND.
In a 1998 research breakthrough, Saul Perlmutter of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues in the Supernova Cosmology Project found the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating. Perlmutter and his team made the discovery by observing distant type Ia supernovae, whose brightnesses are well known, at different distances. His team made observationsContinue reading "What is dark energy?"
Inside the bright but unassumingly named nebula Gum 55 lies a dark nebula — a rift of dust grains that absorb visible light — creating a swatch of darkness against the glow of bright gas. Fittingly named for its shape, the Dark Wolf Nebula is no mere puppy — it spans an area some fourContinue reading "ESO captures Dark Wolf Nebula stalking across the Milky Way "
Researchers have characterized the naturally occurring background radiation hitting a typical quantum circuit—a result that might help with the engineering of devices that are less vulnerable to radiation-induced decoherence.
Salute the animated sci-fi classic's 25th anniversary with the first-ever visual history of the animated sci-fi series in "The Art of Futurama" from series creator Matt Groening.
The cryovolcanic "centaur" comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has erupted four times in less than 48 hours, becoming unusually bright in the process. It is the most powerful outburst from the city-size oddball in more than three years.
Star struck Wisconsin Historical Society PressMadison, WI In Chasing the Stars, authors Kelly Tyrell and James Lattis discuss the astronomical achievements of Washburn Observatory at the University of Wisconsin. The book’s 256 pages feature many images and details the early days of stargazing in the region, as well as Washburn’s many modern discoveries in theContinue reading "New astronomy products to be thankful for"
Congress will hold its second hearing in two years aimed at gathering testimony about alleged UFO retrieval programs and the U.S. government's attempt to hide them.
Lynn Hilborn from Grafton, Ontario The origin of the reflection nebula van den Bergh 9 in Cassiopeia is the Cepheid variable star SU Cas; its blue light is reflected by surrounding dust, which are themselves partially shrouded by thicker dust clouds. This image represents 5 hours of exposure on an 8-inch scope in RGB filters.
Former President Donald J. Trump's return to the White House next January will likely bring big changes to NASA's Artemis program and a renewed sense of urgency to a crewed landing on the moon.
In all, 12 Americans landed on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. Now, both the US and China are preparing to send humans back there this decade.
A 60-year-old tribute to America's first human spaceflight program is standing up to the test of time, but what about the contents of its time capsule not to be opened until 2464?
In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the what happens when our planet, during its journey around the Sun, runs into a stream of particles in its orbit. Such an event is called a meteor shower, and because the streaks of light from these meteors seem to all come from a point in theContinue reading "The Leonid meteor shower: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"
What is the universe expanding into? Euan TobinEdinburgh, Scotland This excellent question forces us to confront a region beyond the bounds of our intuition, so please bear with me. When you inflate a balloon, the balloon’s membrane moves outward, closer to the boundaries of whatever room encloses it. You can easily visualize this expansion becauseContinue reading "What is the universe expanding into?"
Jupiter has no solid ground, like the grass or dirt you tread here on Earth. But how can that be? If Jupiter doesn’t have a surface, what does it have?
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the KoreaSat-6A telecom satellite today. It was be the 23rd flight for the rocket's first stage, tying a company record.
Researchers have discovered the first evidence that the brightest accretion disks around supermassive black holes "wobble" as their monstrous occupants drag them around.
The Roman Coronagraph Instrument on NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will enable scientists to detect the faint light from planets beyond our solar system.
On Episode 136 of This Week In Space, Rod and Tariq talk with journalist and author Eric Berger about the rise of SpaceX and Elon Musk's future in US politics and the market.
Fast radio bursts — powerful and poorly understood cosmic eruptions — tend to occur in massive galaxies that host long-dead stars known as magnetars, a new study suggests.
Boom Supersonic's XB-1 aircraft set a new speed record during its latest test flight on Nov. 5, marking a major milestone toward flying at supersonic speeds.
A small asteroid burned up in Earth's atmosphere off the coast of California just hours after being discovered and before impact monitoring systems had registered its trajectory.
SpaceX's Dragon performed an orbital boost maneuver for the ISS; a first for the spacecraft, and a small step toward the space station's ultimate doom.
Mars is tantalizingly similar to Earth in many ways, but especially in its surface features, which often resemble Earth deserts to an eerie degree. Both Earth and Mars share features such as valleys; canyons; fanlike washes of sand and rock; and long, winding gravel ridges called eskers. All are formed by flowing water, marking theContinue reading "How carbon dioxide glaciers gave Mars liquid water"
Axiom Space of Houston is considering using launch vehicles from India and Europe to help build its commercial space station mission in low-Earth orbit.
University students tested 3D-printed rovers designed to emulate Europe's Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover that is slated to launch to the Martian surface by 2028.
Huge shells of frozen carbon dioxide at Mars' south polar cap resulted in subsurface meltwater, which fed a huge system of rivers, lakes and even a sea, a new study suggests.
Roughly every 15 years, Earth passes through the plane of Saturn’s rings, causing them to nearly disappear from view — not to mention generating a variety of other interesting phenomena. The next such edge-on appearance will be in March 2025, though Saturn will unfortunately be too close to the Sun (only 9.5° away) for usContinue reading "How to see a Saturn ring mirage"
Saturn gets close to the moon tonight, and some skywatchers in Florida, Central America and South America will see the ringed planet briefly disappear behind our lunar companion.
The sixth test flight of Starship — the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly — will launch no earlier than 5 p.m. EST on Monday, November 18, SpaceX said Wednesday. The previous test flight of Starship, which SpaceX also refers to simply as “Ship,” and the Super Heavy booster resulted in the unprecedented catchContinue reading "SpaceX: Starship Flight 6 coming later this month"
Friday, November 8Although the constellation Perseus is perhaps best known for housing the famous Double Cluster, it’s also home to another open star cluster: M34, one of the Hero’s two Messier objects. M34 is some 180 million years old and sits 1,400 light-years from Earth. The cluster contains about 100 stars and takes up roughlyContinue reading "The Sky This Week from November 8 to 15: Catch the Leonids early"
Russia launched 53 small satellites into orbit on Monday (Nov. 4), including two for Iran. The 51 Russian payloads were a single-launch record for the country.
Two dark matter searches report that their detectors have likely recorded neutrinos coming from the Sun—spotting the “neutrino fog” that could imperil future dark matter searches.
A new species of tardigrades with thousands of genes that become more active when exposed to radiation could help in devising better protection for astronauts on long missions.
Intuitive Machines' lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) is not your grandfather's moon buggy. The company's Moon RACER, or Reusable Autonomous Crewed Exploration Rover, just made its public debut.
When the 'God of chaos' asteroid Apophis makes an ultraclose flyby of Earth in 2029, our planet's gravity may trigger tremors and landslides that totally change the asteroid's surface.
NASA's revolutionary X-59 jet is steadily progressing toward its first flight test after completing a set of engine run tests at the storied Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in California.
Crystals that have both a particular structure and a particular combination of electronic orbitals can be simultaneously ferromagnetic and ferroelectric.
Many constellations are well-known for having one very special deep-sky object within their borders, something so famous that when you read or hear that constellation’s name, you instantly think of it, like an astronomical word association game. Orion? The Orion Nebula! Andromeda? The Andromeda Galaxy, of course! Lyra? Easy — the Ring Nebula. And Perseus?Continue reading "Five ‘shy,’ lesser-known deep-sky gems to observe"
The hungriest known black hole in the early universe has been found, thanks to teamwork between NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory.
President-elect Donald Trump had high words of praise for Elon Musk and SpaceX during his election night victory speech, mentioning twice that he did not know what Starlink satellites were.
The United States military test-launched an unarmed nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Nov. 5, 2024.
A Centaur III propellant tank and its rocket engine stand on display at Los Angeles Air Force Base as a testament to its service to both the United States' military and civilian space missions.
Astronomy is a science and a hobby that loves long words, acronyms, and abbreviations. At times, listening to someone talking about an event happening in the sky or an object faraway in space can feel like watching one of those episodes of Star Trek where the characters spend 10 minutes just speaking in “technobabble,” soContinue reading "Learn the difference between common astronomical terms"
Xiaofeng Qu, taken at Xiaochaidan Lake, Qinghai Province, China The Perseid meteors streak across the sky from its radiant in the constellation Perseus appearing in this perspective to be lobbed across the sky. This panorama of 17 stitched 60-second frames was taken with a Nikon DSLR at 14mm lens at f/1.8. Sky frames were capturedContinue reading "A meteoric volley"
By repeatedly applying coats of a hardening polymer to a surface, researchers have created rubbery stalactite-like formations that could be useful in soft robotics.
Despite the rapid growth in the number of space travellers, underrepresented population groups are still left behind, particularly those with disabilities. So how can space agencies and “space tourism” companies make spaceflight more inclusive for disabled astronauts?
The era of the International Space Station (ISS) is coming to a close. In the near future, NASA plans to bring down the station in a controlled deorbit. The end of the ISS will leave a large gap in human spaceflight, although the Chinese Tiangong space station is currently active. Still, to make a spaceContinue reading "We’re entering the era of private space stations"
We're about to learn more about the solar wind, thanks to NASA's Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX), which just arrived at the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.
Using NASA's Chandra spacecraft, astronomers have found "danger zones" for worlds where planet-birthing disks are blasted with high-energy radiation from massive young stars and rapidly disintegrate.
A celestial light show illuminates a distant spiral galaxy, where a hidden supernova briefly outshines its stellar neighbors in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Today, at the World Travel Market in London, STARMUS and The Canary Islands proudly unveiled the line-up for the highly anticipated STARMUS La Palma festival. The announcement was made during a special presentation led by STARMUS co-founder and Director, Prof. Garik Israelian, featuring the President of the Cabildo de La Palma, Sergio Rodríguez. Under theContinue reading "Starmus La Palma: The Island of Stars lineup revealed "
An old galaxy reveals clusters of young stars that have formed in an unusually synchronized fashion, challenging the idea that star formation declines as galaxies age.
A theoretical analysis suggests that a novel “twisting “microscope could offer new insights into the exotic electronic behavior of layered 2D materials.
The second-largest moon in our solar system may have a secret ingredient that explains many of its mysteries — and maybe ups the chances for life there. In research published Sept. 30 in The Planetary Science Journal, a University of Hawaii-led team modeled the potential for methane clathrate (a kind of methane-infused water ice) inContinue reading "Could a methane crust be keeping Titan warm?"
NASA astronauts can vote from space, but why can't they endorse political candidates? As it turns out, U.S. federal law specifically prohibits them from doing so.
Despite their destructive forces, black holes are often seen in with a companion, such as a star, neutron star, white dwarf, or even another black hole. However, a study published Oct. 23 in Nature has found that the black hole binary system V404 Cygni, which contains a black hole and a small star, has anContinue reading "This famous black hole system is actually a triple"
The neutron star 4U 1820-30 is one of the fastest spinning bodies in the universe, spinning at 716 times a second and erupting like an atomic bomb, NASA's NICER telescope has found.
A joint Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project to learn more about the dusty disk around the bright star Vega has found a surprising lack of planets.
Rainbows don’t actually exist. You can’t find the end of a rainbow (or its attendant pot of gold). It’s not possible to walk across a rainbow as the Norse gods did on the Bifrost, the bridge for fallen warriors to reach Valhalla, or to travel over one like Dorothy to Oz. Rather, rainbows and otherContinue reading "Explore the science of rainbows"
AstroForce has received a commercial license for operating and communicating with a mission headed to a near-Earth asteroid, the first to be granted for beyond Earth orbit.
Stellar Stories Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS now a faint naked-eye object Moving across the constellation Ophiuchus in the evening sky, Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS continues to fade as it moves farther away from Earth and the Sun. The comet now glows at 6th magnitude, keeping it as a faint naked-eye object under a very dark sky. ButContinue reading "Universe, Discovered: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS still a naked eye object — barely"
Stellar Stories Hera spacecraft launched The European Space Agency’s Hxera spacecraft launched on October 7, initiating an exciting exploration of an unusual asteroid. The solar system contains many thousands of small asteroid bodies, but the target here — 65803 Didymos, is a binary object spanning some 850 meters (about half a mile). The accompanying imageContinue reading "Universe, Discovered: Hera launches to asteroid crash scene"
In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the Moon as it closely passes the Ringed Planet on the evening of November 10. Our natural satellite will be just past its First Quarter phase, while Saturn will glow nicely at magnitude 0.8. If you have a telescope and point it at Saturn, you’ll seeContinue reading "The Moon meets Saturn: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"
India plans to launch astronauts to Earth orbit no sooner than 2026, roughly a year past the previously known timeline, following a series of uncrewed flight tests slated to begin in December.
In a rare show of openness about the X-37B, Boeing Space released a video detailing how the space plane's aerobraking maneuvers help change the spacecraft's orbit.
There are four Americans currently living in space, and each has had the opportunity to add their voice to the more than 160 million other Americans able to participate in the 2024 Presidential election.
Microgravity makes water do weird and wonderful things. NASA astronaut Don Pettit took advantage of that fact to create a colorful ball that resembles Jupiter.
By exploiting polarized-gas collisions, researchers have conducted a sensitive search for exotic spin-dependent interactions, placing new constraints on a dark matter candidate called the axion.
It has been 52 years since Apollo 17 lifted off from the Taurus-Littrow Valley on the Moon. All the Apollo landing sites, starting with Tranquility Base on the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, have been immortalized in print and film and are well known to space aficionados worldwide. But soon, another name will join the exclusiveContinue reading "Here are the nine sites where Artemis 3 might land on the Moon"
Many astrophotos feature exposures of 12 hours or more. Since nighttime darkness is only about this long, this implies multiple exposures on different nights. How does one set things up to get the exact same location, and avoid parallax error due to Earth’s rotation and orbit? Jose G. RieraSt. Augustine, Florida You are correct, manyContinue reading "How are long-exposure astrophotos made? "
Mars' global magnetic field may have hung around for 200 million years longer than scientists had thought, possibly giving life a longer window to take hold on the Red Planet.
SpaceX scrubbed a planned launch of 23 Starlink satellites on Sunday (Nov. 3) due to a helium issue in the first stage of the company's Falcon 9 rocket.
Monday evening (Nov. 4), the night before Election Day, will bring a lovely celestial display involving the two brightest objects in the nighttime sky: the moon and Venus.
Over 100 astronomers from leading U.S. universities have signed an open letter calling for an assessment of potential impacts of satellite megaconstellations on Earth's environment.
Overall Photons: Andrea Iorio, Elisa Cuccu, Fernando Linsalata, Javier Caldera, Paul Montague, Carlos Uriarte Castillo, Darius Kopriva, Drew Evans, Bruno Rota Sargi, Blake Behrends, Manuel Alejandro Chavarría Silva, Phillip Hoppes, Jan Beranek, Roberto Volpini, Pier Mattia Basciano, Marco Finatti, Jeff Ratino, Vakhtang Khutsishvili, and Patrice Soom NGC 7293 — better known as the Helix NebulaContinue reading "Eye of the universe"
Duff Goldman, the host of the Food Network show "Ace of Cakes," has for a third year brought a space-themed cake to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
We live in a golden age for learning about the universe. Our most powerful telescopes have revealed that the cosmos is surprisingly simple on the largest visible scales.
By the dawn of the 20th century, not much had changed in the 400 years since Galileo’s discovery of the four jovian moons and his confirmation of Copernicus’ Sun-centered solar system. Through the early 1900s, astronomers disagreed on whether the universe was home to a multitude of galaxies, so-called “island universes,” or contained entirely withinContinue reading "How Edwin Hubble won the Great Debate"
What is this latest “space race” about, and are there pathways to common ground? History suggests these do exist. As a space governance specialist, I argue our future depends on it.
Microgravity makes water do weird and wonderful things. NASA astronaut Don Pettit took advantage of that fact to create a colorful ball that resembles Jupiter.
Black hole formation could be a little Big Bang in reverse, coupling the matter of a dying star with dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Scientists breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when NASA announced that the Chandra X-ray Observatory had been spared the chopping block — at least for another year. It was an abrupt about-face from plans announced in March to decommission the space-based telescope by this December. Much of the credit for the 11th-hour stayContinue reading "Chandra X-ray telescope, facing chopping block, gets reprieve from NASA"
Astronomers have used a range of telescopes, including Hubble, to watch as particles dance around a neutron star collision that created the smallest black hole ever seen.
New technologies including recoverable satellites and in-orbit space debris recycling could help solve the satellite air pollution problem and prevent a new ecological crisis in the future.
Bob Fera/Steve Mandel, taken from Sierra Remote Observatories, California The Sailboat Cluster (NGC 225) is an open star cluster in Cassiopeia; its common name was given to it by Astronomy contributor Rodney Pommier for the visual pattern of its stars. (If you can’t see the sailboat, try tilting your head slightly to the right.) TheContinue reading "Gales of November"
As millions of people around the world celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams radioed home her share of festive cheer.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) orbit the Earth hundreds of miles above American soil. But that doesn’t mean they can’t vote while they float. Indeed, Boeing Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—who have been in the orbital laboratory since June after their test mission was extended due to safety concerns—said they intend to cast their ballots in theContinue reading "Here’s how ISS astronauts will vote in the 2024 election"
The imprecision in the measurements of claimed interstellar fireballs means it is highly likely they originate in the solar system instead, a new study reports.
Thanks to images from various NASA spacecraft, we can get an up-close look at the Jupiter ocean moon Europa long before the agency's Europa Clipper probe arrives.
For thousands of years, humans have worshipped the Sun. Our ancestors built monuments and temples to it, and used it to mark the annual cycle of seasons. For ancient Egyptians, their most important god, Re, was the personification of the Sun itself. Today, we are no less in thrall to the wonders and mysteries ofContinue reading "Bringing the Sun to light"
Friday, November 1New Moon occurs this morning at 8:47 A.M. EDT. The planet Mercury is now becoming visible, low in the evening sky. If you have a clear view southwest, you may catch the planet some 30 minutes after sunset, hanging just 2° above the horizon. Although bright at magnitude –0.3, it may be difficultContinue reading "The Sky This Week from November 1 to 8: Valles Marineris comes into view"
The partial failure of Starliner’s mission doesn’t help Boeing’s effort to bounce back from its problems. The company’s reputation has not been irreparably damaged, however. Boeing can recover and is taking the right initiatives to re-emphasise a safety culture – something that’s crucial to its business going forward.
Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory was felled by the combination of a hurricane, an equipment failure never before seen in the annals of engineering, and an “alarming” lack of concern from engineers and inspectors when crucial support cables were seen slipping out of their sockets years before the main platform of the famed radio telescope cameContinue reading "Arecibo telescope was doomed by hurricane damage and human failures, says report"
India is eyeing a 2028 launch for its Chandrayaan-4 moon sample-return mission, followed by an uncrewed lunar lander and rover in collaboration with Japan.
Two of the world's most powerful space telescopes have spied a spooky pair of galaxies in deep space, staring out like a pair of "blood-soaked" eyes just in time for Halloween.
Halloween is here, and there is no better way to celebrate than with a blood-curdling image of the Dark Wolf Nebula looking like a cosmic werewolf poised to grab an unwitting victim.
North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday (July 12), shortly after complaining about purported spying activity by the United States.
The extreme qualities of neutron stars could mean these dead stellar remnants gather dense clouds of hypothetical particles called "axions" around them, potentially shedding light on dark matter.
A geomagnetic storm, the largest supermoon of the year, a comet and an eerie fireball were among the skywatching treats that haunted the night sky of October 2024.
China has moved up its timeline for bringing Mars samples to Earth, aiming to do so as early as 2028 — long before the U.S. is slated to achieve this same ambitious goal.
Jeff Schilling from Houston, Texas The star Gamma (γ) Cassiopeia sets aglow the interstellar clouds of IC 63 and IC 59, which appear like a ghost and its tail, respectively. This imager used a 5-inch refractor to take exposures in HαRGB filters of 5.4, 2, 2, and 2 hours, respectively.
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered brown dwarfs at the heart of planet-forming disks in the Orion nebula. The discovery could help reveal if these "failed stars" can have planets.
Astrophotographer Miguel Claro captured Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) from the Dark Sky Alqueva reserve in Portugal on Oct. 13, 2024 as the comet was displaying an 'anti-tail.'
For all of human history, the Sun has served as a great constant in daily life. As this brilliant orb blazes across the sky, it sustaind life, provides harmonious rhythms to our world, and marks the continuous passage of time. It is no wonder that curious minds have always sought to explain both the Sun’sContinue reading "Tales of the Sun: From myth to modern science"
NASA has refined its list of potential landing sites near the moon's south pole for its Artemis 3 mission, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface no earlier than 2026.
Simulations deliver hints on how the multiverse produced according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics might be compatible with our stable, classical Universe.
Debris from the broken-apart Intelsat 33e telecom satellite is spreading across geosynchronous orbit, threatening spacecraft in this precious region of space, an animation shows.
“Watch out for rambunctious stars. They are trouble,” says Astronomy Editor David Eicher. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) just published a new photograph showing the stunning masterpiece that is R Aquarii, lying about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius the Water-bearer. It is an uncommon type of binary star system displaying chaotic behavior andContinue reading "Watch a zombie star feed on its companion"
China launched the Shenzhou 19 mission to orbit today (Oct. 29), sending three astronauts toward the nation's Tiangong space station for a six-month stay.
NASA remains in an ongoing test mode to determine what’s behind the ablative thermal protective material that chipped away unexpectedly from the Artemis 1 Orion heat shield during its reentry.
A new model of liquid sprays reveals the mechanisms behind droplet formation—providing important information for eventually controlling the droplet sizes in, for example, home cleaning sprays.
The town of Williams Bay, Wisconsin is much like any other small city on a lake, with an offering of tourist shops and an active beach. But just a short drive past the activity brings you to Yerkes Observatory. Behind an opening of trees stands a sprawling, grand estate with a well-manicured lawn and aContinue reading "How Yerkes Observatory started over"
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![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/MbWjghC4pHhVGPjiyD29tF.png "An image from Prime Video's "Secret Level"")
![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/dTQAzkk9LTKxgEfiTQh2sE.jpg "From Munchkinland to the moon: The path between "The Wizard of Oz" and the Apollo moon landings may not be paved in gold bricks, but involves a large beige concrete soundstage and eight decades of Hollywood history.")
![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/r8HnFmwTtbgyUoxrphJh84.jpg "Two starship captains grace a promo poster for "Star Trek Generations"")
![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/VZTSkoVhfZ2tMjy4rmx7gC.jpg "a seal reading "AARO" above the Pentagon")
![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/xfBNNm2QL635JHujd9cWn8.png "An illustration of the "cotton candy" planet WASP-193b")
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