What Will the James Webb Space Telescope See? A Whole Bunch of Dust, That’s What When it comes to the first galaxies, the James Webb Space Telescope will attempt to understand the formation of those galaxies and their link to the underlying dark matter. In case you didn’t know, most of the matter in our […]
The First Molecule that was Possible in the Universe has been Seen in Space It takes a rich and diverse set of complex molecules for things like stars, galaxies, planets and lifeforms like us to exist. But before humans and all the complex molecules we’re made of could exist, there had to be that first […]
The World’s Biggest Aircraft – the Rocket-Launching Stratolaunch – Completes its First Test Flight Stratolaunch recently conducted the first test flight of its air-carrier plane, the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world. The post The World’s Biggest Aircraft – the Rocket-Launching Stratolaunch – Completes its First Test Flight appeared first on Universe Today. Universe […]
Methane-Filled Lakes on Titan are “Surprisingly Deep” The Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons wrapped up in 2017, when the spacecraft was sent plunging into the gas giant to meet its end. But there’s still a lot of data from the mission to keep scientists busy. A team of scientists working with Cassini data […]
TESS Just Found its First Earth-Sized World NASA’s new planet-hunting telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), just found its first Earth-sized world. Though the Earth-sized planet, and its hot sub-Neptune companion, were first observed by TESS in January 2019, it’s taken until now to confirm their status with ground-based follow-up observations. The discovery is published […]
Hubble celebrates its 29th birthday with unrivaled view of the Southern Crab Nebula This incredible image of the hourglass-shaped Southern Crab Nebula was taken to mark the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 29th anniversary in space. The nebula, created by a binary star system, is one of the many objects that Hubble has demystified throughout its […]
Four questions: Here there be monsters On April 10, the world got to see the first image taken of a black hole in space, taken by the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide collaboration of astronomers and astrophysicists including a substantial team at the University of Arizona. phys.org Go to Source
Research provides insights into molecular gas in the massive spiral galaxy NGC 5908 In a recently published research, which is part of a broader observational campaign focused on studying massive spiral galaxies, astronomers have investigated molecular lines of carbon monoxide and its isotopologues in NGC 5908. The study, detailed in a paper published April 10 […]
Lithium detected in an ancient star gives new clues for Big Bang nucleosynthesis Researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (Spain) and the University of Cambridge (UK) have detected lithium (Li) in the ancient star J0023+0307, a main-sequence extremely iron-poor dwarf star about 9,450 light years away in the galactic halo. phys.org Go to […]
Planck reveals link between active galaxies and their dark matter environment Scientists have used the tiny distortions imprinted on the cosmic microwave background by the gravity of matter throughout the universe, recorded by ESA’s Planck satellite, to uncover the connection between the luminosity of quasars – the bright cores of active galaxies – and the […]
Five planets revealed after 20 years of observation Over 4000 exoplanets have been discovered since the first one in 1995, but the vast majority of them orbit their stars with relatively short periods of revolution. Indeed, to confirm the presence of a planet, it is necessary to wait until it has made one or more […]
Elusive molecule, first in Universe, detected in space In the beginning, more than 13 billion years ago, the Universe was an undifferentiated soup of three simple, single-atom elements. phys.org Go to Source
Astronomers Find a Chunk of a Comet Inside a Meteorite The early days of the Solar System are hard to piece together from our vantage point, billions of years after it happened. Now a team of scientists have found a tiny chunk of an ancient comet inside an ancient meteorite. They say it sheds light […]
Astro-Challenge: Spotting Slender Moons Up for a challenge? Some of the toughest targets for a backyard observer involve little or no equipment at all. Northern hemisphere Spring brings with it one of our favorite astronomical pursuits: the first sighting of the extremely thin, waxing crescent Moon. This unique feat of visual athletics may be fairly […]
Explosion on Jupiter-sized star 10 times more powerful than ever seen on the sun A stellar flare ten times more powerful than anything seen on our sun has burst from an ultracool star almost the same size as Jupiter. phys.org Go to Source
Possible evidence of an extrasolar object striking the Earth in 2014 A pair of researchers has found possible evidence of an extrasolar object striking the Earth back in 2014. In their paper uploaded to the arXiv preprint server, Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb describe their study of data in the Center for Near-Earth Object studies […]
Evidence of another possible planet orbiting Proxima Centauri A team of researchers studying the nearest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, has found possible evidence of a second planet in its system. Team members Fabio Del Sordo with the University of Crete and Mario Damasso with the Observatory of Turin gave a presentation of […]
Powerful particles and tugging tides may affect extraterrestrial life Since its discovery in 2016, planetary scientists have been excited about TRAPPIST-1, a system where seven Earth-sized rocky planets orbit a cool star. Three of the planets are in the habitable zone, the region of space where liquid water can flow on the planets’ surfaces. But […]
SpaceX’s Starlink Constellation Construction Begins. 2,200 Satellites Will go up Over the Next 5 years Musk recently announced that SpaceX will begin deploying the first batch of its internet satellites next year and continuing until 2024. The post SpaceX’s Starlink Constellation Construction Begins. 2,200 Satellites Will go up Over the Next 5 years appeared first […]
Despite the Crash, SpaceIL is Going Back to the Moon with Beresheet 2 Beresheet, the unlikely lander built with donations to a non-profit group, crashed into the Moon. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a historic accomplishment in its own way. Now SpaceIL, the non-profit behind Beresheet, wants to send another lander to the Moon. […]
