S.Africa’s vast radio telescope draws new generation to the cosmos When Lungelo Zondi first learned about stars and galaxies at primary school in South Africa, she dreamed of having a live feed into the universe for uninterrupted space exploration. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Astrophysicists explore our galaxy’s magnetic turbulence in unprecedented detail using a new computer model Astronomers have developed a computer simulation to explore, in unprecedented detail, magnetism and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM)—the vast ocean of gas and charged particles that lies between stars in the Milky Way galaxy. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
NASA’s PUNCH catches first rainbow and other new images As instrument commissioning and calibration checks continue for NASA’s newly launched PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, its four spacecraft continue to deliver new images—including its first rainbow-colored view of the sky and the first images taken by two of its instruments. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Astronomers detect eleven new active galactic nuclei Using the Spektr-RG (SRG) space observatory, astronomers from the Russian Academy of Sciences have investigated dozens of X-ray sources in all-sky surveys, which resulted in the detection of 11 new active galactic nuclei. The finding was reported in a research paper published in Astronomy Letters. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Hubble comes face-to-face with spiral’s arms The spiral galaxy NGC 3596 is on display in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image that incorporates six different wavelengths of light. NGC 3596 is situated 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo, the Lion. British astronomer Sir William Herschel first documented the galaxy in 1784. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Webb reveals new details and mysteries in Jupiter’s aurora The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our solar system’s largest planet. The dancing lights observed on Jupiter are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth. With Webb’s advanced sensitivity, astronomers have studied the phenomena to better understand Jupiter’s magnetosphere. They have published their results in the journal Nature Communications. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Astrophysicist searches for gravitational waves in new way University of Colorado Boulder astrophysicist Jeremy Darling is pursuing a new way of measuring the universe’s gravitational wave background—the constant flow of waves that churn through the cosmos, warping the very fabric of space and time. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Two exoplanets discovered orbiting sun-like star An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of two new exoplanets, a few times more massive than Earth, orbiting a sun-like star known as HD 35843. The finding was reported in a research paper published May 1 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Universe expected to decay in 10⁷⁸ years, much sooner than previously thought The universe is decaying much faster than thought. This is shown by calculations of three Dutch scientists on the so-called Hawking radiation. They calculate that the last stellar remnants take about 1078 years to perish. That is much shorter than the previously postulated 101100 years. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Tracing the Moon’s Geological History with LUGO Some parts of the Moon are more interesting than others, especially when searching for future places for humans to land and work. There are also some parts of the Moon that we know less about than others, such as the Irregular Mare Patches (IMPs) that dot the landscape. We know very little about how they were formed, and what that might mean for the history of the Moon itself. A new mission, called the LUnar Geology Orbiter (LUGO), aims to collect more data on the IMPs and search for lava tubes that might serve as future homes toRead More →
There are Many Ways to Interpret the Atmosphere of K2-18 b Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That truism, now known as the “Sagan standard” after science communication Carl Sagan, has been around in some form since David Hume first published it in the 1740s. But, with modern-day data collection, sometimes even extraordinary evidence isn’t enough – it’s how you interpret it. That’s the argument behind a new pre-print paper by Luis Welbanks and their colleagues at Arizona State University and various other American institutions. They analyzed the data behind the recent claims of biosignature detection in the atmosphere of K2-18b and found that other non-biologicalRead More →
Want to Find Life? You’ll Want Several Exoplanets in the Same System to Compare Most astronomers agree that life is likely common throughout the Universe. While Earth is the only world known to have life, we know that life arose early on our world, and the building blocks of life, including amino acids and sugars, form readily. We also know there are countless worlds in the cosmos that might be home for life. But just because life is likely, that doesn’t mean proving it will be easy. Many of the biosignatures we can observe can also have abiotic origins. So how can we be sure?Read More →
Space Weather Can Dramatically Alter a Planet’s Fate We tend to think of habitability in terms of individual planets and their potential to host life. But barring outliers like rogue planets with internal heating or icy moons with subsurface oceans created by tidal heating, it’s exoplanet/star relationships that generate habitability, not individual planets. New research emphasizes that fact. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Early galaxies may contribute to the ‘afterglow’ of the universe The “afterglow” of the universe is an important piece of evidence for the Big Bang. This background radiation also provides important answers to the question of how the first galaxies were able to form. Researchers at the Universities of Bonn, Prague and Nanjing calculate that the strength of this radiation has probably been overestimated up to now. If the results prove to be accurate, it would call into question the theoretical foundation of the standard model of cosmology. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Taking super sharp astronomical images with adaptive optics ESO Video Casts Go to SourceRead More →
How Many Rogue Planets are in the Milky Way? The Roman Space Telescope Will Give Us an Answer Over the past decade or so, astronomers have speculated about the characteristics of rogue planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. These “free-floating” worlds don’t orbit stars, but instead roam the spaceways. They’re hard to spot with current technology, but the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) will be a perfect instrument to find them and give insights into the history and features they may have in common with Solar System worlds. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Quasars Don’t Last Long. So How Do They Get So Massive? One of the unanswered questions in astronomy is just how supermassive black holes grew so big, so quickly. A team of astronomers have tried to answer this question by searching for actively feeding supermassive black holes (aka quasars) as a way to measure how much material material they are actually accumulating. They studied nebulae near the quasars that light up with the quasar is releasing radiation and found that many of the more distant quasars have only been active for a few hundred thousand years, not long enough to grow to the size weRead More →
NASA telescopes tune into a black hole prelude and fugue NASA has released three new pieces of cosmic sound that are associated with the densest and darkest members of our universe: black holes. These scientific productions are sonifications—or translations into sound—of data collected by NASA telescopes in space, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Hubble pinpoints roaming massive black hole Like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, astronomers using NASA telescopes have found “Space Jaws.” Lurking 600 million light-years away, within the inky black depths between stars, there is an invisible monster gulping down any wayward star that plummets toward it. The sneaky black hole betrayed its presence in a newly identified tidal disruption event (TDE) where a hapless star was ripped apart and swallowed in a spectacular burst of radiation. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Webb visualization reveals 3D structure of Cosmic Cliffs In July 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope made its public debut with a series of breathtaking images. Among them was an ethereal landscape nicknamed the Cosmic Cliffs. This glittering realm of star birth is the subject of a new 3D visualization derived from the Webb data. The visualization, created by NASA’s Universe of Learning and titled “Exploring the Cosmic Cliffs in 3D,” breathes new life into an iconic Webb image. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
