Of Course Mars 2020 is Going to Get a New Name. NASA is Looking for Judges for an Upcoming Naming Contest NASA and its partner organizations are launching the “Name that Rover” competition, which gives students from all over the US a chance to name the Mars 2020 rover. The post Of Course Mars 2020 […]
Curiosity Sniffs a Spike in Methane. Could it be a Sign of Life? The Curiosity rover has detected another methane plume on Mars, once again raising the issue of whether or not there could be life somewhere beneath the surface. The post Curiosity Sniffs a Spike in Methane. Could it be a Sign of Life? […]
Third Falcon Heavy Launch Blasts 24 Payloads Into Orbit Including a Solar Sail. Doesn’t Quite Stick the Landing In what Elon Musk is calling their “most difficult” mission so far, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket for the third time. The launch took place at 2:30 am ET Tuesday from a launch pad at Kennedy […]
Carnival of Space #617 Welcome to the 617th Carnival of Space! The Carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. We have a fantastic roundup today so now, on to this week’s worth of stories! Universe Today: Martian Clouds Might Start […]
Hubble is the Ultimate Multitasker: Discovering Asteroids While it’s Doing Other Observations It looks like a poster of the famous Hubble Deep Field, marked with white streaks by a child, or put away carelessly and scratched in the process. But it’s not. The white streaks aren’t accidents; they’re the paths of asteroids. A couple years […]
Hubble finds tiny ‘electric soccer balls’ in space, helps solve interstellar mystery Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of electrically-charged molecules in space shaped like soccer balls, shedding light on the mysterious contents of the interstellar medium (ISM) – the gas and dust that fills interstellar space. phys.org Go to Source
Research team studies binaries to make heads or tails of planet formation A Southwest Research Institute-led team studied the orientation of distant solar system bodies to bolster the “streaming instability” theory of planet formation. phys.org Go to Source
Desert hotel ESO Video Casts Go to Source
Tidal tails detected around dwarf galaxy DDO 44 By conducting deep, wide-area imaging survey of the galaxy NGC 2403 and its environment, including the dwarf satellite galaxy DDO 44, astronomers have detected tidal tails emanating from the dwarf. The finding, presented in a paper published June 19, could shed more light on the interactions between […]
Paranal nightfall ESO Video Casts Go to Source
Scientist develops novel algorithm to aid search for exoplanets Inspired by movie streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu, a Southwest Research Institute scientist developed a technique to look for stars likely to host giant, Jupiter-sized planets outside of our solar system. She developed an algorithm to identify stars likely to host giant exoplanets, based […]
MUSE reveals a glowing ring of light in the distant universe The MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile has revealed very detailed halos of neutral hydrogen around distant galaxies. A new result zooms on a few such halos, one of them forming a large, almost-complete ring of light. This result will be […]
Study shows how icy outer solar system satellites may have formed Using sophisticated computer simulations and observations, a team led by researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology has shown how the so-called trans-Neptunian objects (or TNOs) may have formed. TNOs, which include the dwarf planet Pluto, are a group […]
Uranus’ Rings are Surprisingly Bright in Thermal Emissions New observations by ALMA and the VLT provide the most-detailed look yet at Uranus’ system of rings, revealing things about their temperature and particle distribution The post Uranus’ Rings are Surprisingly Bright in Thermal Emissions appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to Source
Messier 88 – the NGC 4501 Spiral Galaxy Located in the Coma Berenices constellation, about 50 to 60 million light-years from Earth, is the spiral galaxy known as Messier 88 The post Messier 88 – the NGC 4501 Spiral Galaxy appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to Source
Galaxy clusters caught in a first kiss For the first time, astronomers have found two giant clusters of galaxies that are just about to collide. This observation can be seen as a missing ‘piece of the puzzle’ in our understanding of the formation of structure in the universe, since large-scale structures—such as galaxies and clusters […]
Smash and grab: A heavyweight stellar champion for dying stars Dying stars that cast off their outer envelopes to form the beautiful yet enigmatic “planetary nebulae” (PNe) have a new heavy-weight champion, the innocuously named PNe BMP1613-5406. Massive stars live fast and die young, exploding as powerful supernovae after only a few million years. However, […]
Model suggests how early dark energy could resolve the Hubble tension The universe is continuously expanding, yet the exact rate at which it does so remains unclear, and has so far only been approximated using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other similar instruments. Moreover, in recent years, astronomers using the Hubble telescope have unveiled a […]
Astronomers detect 130 short period variable stars By conducting photometric observations of the open cluster Stock 8 and its surrounding region, astronomers have identified 130 short-period variable stars, classifying 51 of them as members of the cluster. A paper detailing the findings appeared June 18 on the arXiv pre-print repository. phys.org Go to Source
Subaru Telescope identifies the outermost edge of the Milky Way system A team of researchers identified the outermost edge of the Milky Way galaxy. Using the Subaru Telescope, the researchers examined the boundary of the stellar system that makes up the galaxy. The ultimate size of the galaxy is 520,000 light years in radius, 20 […]
