Galileo Sunspot Sketches Versus Modern ‘Deep Learning’ AI A new study turns modern ‘deep learning’ techniques on Galileo’s early sketches of the Sun. It’s a fascinating thought to consider. What exactly did the Sun look like, centuries ago? What would we see, if astronomers back in the time of Kepler and Galileo had modern technology […]
Telescopes unite in unprecedented observations of famous black hole In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told. phys.org Go to Source
Study explores extremely luminous infrared galaxy WISEJ0909+0002 An international team of astronomers has investigated an extremely luminous infrared galaxy known as WISEJ090924.01+000211.1 (or WISEJ0909+0002 for short) as part of the eROSITA final equatorial depth survey (eFEDS). Results of this study, published April 6 on the arXiv pre-print server, provide important insights into the properties of […]
Stellar feedback and an airborne observatory: Team determines a nebula to be much younger than previously believed In the southern sky, situated about 4,300 light years from Earth, lies RCW 120, an enormous glowing cloud of gas and dust. This cloud, known as an emission nebula, is formed of ionized gases and emits light at […]
Novel theory addresses centuries-old physics problem The ‘three-body problem,’ the term coined for predicting the motion of three gravitating bodies in space, is essential for understanding a variety of astrophysical processes as well as a large class of mechanical problems, and has occupied some of the world’s best physicists, astronomers and mathematicians for over three […]
Earth Gains 5,200 Tons of Dust From Space Every Year Whenever I wipe the dust off my coffee table or catch a glimpse of dust motes floating in sunlight, my spacey mind always wonders, is any of that cosmic dust? It just might be. But the amount of space dust that lands on our planet […]
Indian astronomers detect over 200 variable stars Using the ARIES telescope, astronomers from India have inspected a young open cluster known as NGC 281, searching for new variable stars. As a result of this investigation, they detected 228 new variables. The finding is detailed in a paper published April 5 on the arXiv pre-print repository. […]
‘Yellowballs’ offer new insights into star formation A serendipitous discovery by citizen scientists has provided a unique new window into the diverse environments that produce stars and star clusters, revealing the presence of “stellar nurseries” before infant stars emerge from their birth clouds, according to Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Grace Wolf-Chase. phys.org Go to […]
Black holes like to eat, but have a variety of table manners All supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That’s the conclusion reached by British and Dutch astronomers from their research […]
The Same Technology Could Search for Microbes in Mars Rocks or Under the ice on Europa Ever since it landed in the Jezero Crater on Feb. 18th, 2021, the Perseverance rover has been prepping its scientific instruments to begin searching for signs of past life on the Red Planet. These include spectrometers that will scan […]
Trojan Mission Lucy Tested its Solar Panels for the First Time. Those Things are Huge Space missions often have to go where the sun don’t shine. Or at least where it shines very faintly. That is particularly important if the mission draws its power from the sun. Luckily, engineers have a way of dealing with […]
Gaia Finds 12 Examples of Einstein Crosses; Galaxies Being Gravitationally Lensed so we see Them Repeated 4 Times In 1915, Einstein put the finishing touches on his Theory of General Relativity (GR), a revolutionary new hypothesis that described gravity as a geometric property of space and time. This theory remains the accepted description of gravitation […]
Brown Dwarfs can Spin so Fast They Almost Tear Themselves Apart We tend to image planets as spheres. Held together by gravity, the material of a planet compresses and shifts until gravity and pressure reach a balance point known as hydrostatic equilibrium. Hydrostatic equilibrium is one of the defining characteristics of a planet. If a […]
OSIRIS-REx Did One Last Close Flyby of Asteroid Bennu. It’s Almost Time to Come Home After more than two years in orbit around asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is ready to come home. It’s bringing with it a pristine sample of space rocks that geologists here on Earth are eager to study up close. The […]
How’s the Weather in Jezero Crater? According to Perseverance: Cold On February 18th, 2021, the Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero crater on Mars. Shortly thereafter, it powered up some of the scientific instruments it will use to conduct science operations and search for potential evidence of past life. One such instrument is the Mars […]
Primordial Asteroids That Never Suffered Massive Collisions all Seem to be Larger Than 100 km. Why? Planetary systems form out of the remnant gas and dust of a primordial star. The material collapses into a protoplanetary disk around the young star, and the clumps that form within the disk eventually become planets, asteroids, or other […]
What Would Raindrops be Like on Other Worlds? Precipitation is much more widespread throughout that solar system than commonly assumed. Obviously it rains water on Earth. But it snows carbon dioxide on Mars, rains methane on Titan, sulfuric acid on Venus, and could potentially rain diamonds on Neptune. The type of material falling out of […]
Jupiter Could Make an Ideal Dark Matter Detector So, you want to find dark matter, but you don’t know where to look? A giant planet might be exactly the kind of particle detector you need! Luckily, our solar system just happens to have a couple of them available, and the biggest and closest is Jupiter. […]
Hubble takes a spiral snapshot The luminous heart of the galaxy M61 dominates this image, framed by its winding spiral arms threaded with dark tendrils of dust. As well as the usual bright bands of stars, the spiral arms of M61 are studded with ruby-red patches of light. Tell-tale signs of recent star formation, these […]
Perseverance Takes a Selfie With Ingenuity. It’s Almost Time to fly Perseverance is having a proud parent moment in this image, looking like it’s waiting with a child at the bus stop on the first day of school. The Mars 2020 rover took this selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, which is preparing to take the […]
