Astronomers uncover briefest supernova-powered gamma-ray burst Astronomers have discovered the shortest-ever gamma-ray burst (GRB) caused by the implosion of a massive star. Using the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, astronomers identified the cause of this 0.6-second flurry of gamma rays as a supernova explosion in a distant galaxy. GRBs caused by supernovae […]
Hubble finds first evidence of water vapor on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the moon’s surface sublimates—that is, turns from solid to gas. phys.org Go to Source
When the Sun Dies, Earth’s Magnetosphere won’t Provide Protection any More The Earth’s magnetic field is an underappreciated wonder of the natural world. It protects our atmosphere, provides some of the most breathtaking scenery when it creates auroras, and allows people to navigate from one side of the world to the other. Unfortunately, it won’t […]
French astronomers explore supercluster PLCK G334.8-38.0 Using ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope, a team of French astronomers has conducted an X-ray study of a supercluster known as PLCK G334.8-38.0. Results of this research, published July 16 on the arXiv pre-print server, deliver important insights into the nature of this structure. phys.org Go to Source
Zhurong Finds its Own Parachute on the Surface of Mars As of July 23, 2021, China’s Mars rover Zhurong has traveled 585 meters across the surface of Mars. And along the way, it’s taking pictures of interesting sights. Some of the most intriguing recent images from the rover show debris from the rover’s landing. During […]
Planetary remnants around white dwarf stars When a star like our sun gets to be old, in another seven billion years or so, it will no longer be able to sustain burning its nuclear fuel. With only about half of its mass remaining it will shrink to a fraction of its radius and become a […]
A Gravitational Wave Observatory on the Moon Could “Hear” 70% of the Observable Universe Gravitational-wave astronomy is set to revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos. In only a few years it has significantly enhanced our understanding of black holes, but it is still a scientific field in its youth. That means there are still serious […]
Incredible! Astronomers see a Moon-Forming Disk Around a Newly Forming Planet Planetary formation is a complicated, multilayered process. Even with the influx of data on exoplanets, there are still only two known planets that are not yet fully formed. Known as PDS 70b and PDS 70c, the two planets, which were originally found by the […]
Observing the Night Side of Venus is Actually Pretty Tricky Observing the dark side of planets is hard. In the visible spectrum, they are almost unobservable, while in the infrared some heat signatures may come through, but not enough to help see what is going on in a planet’s atmosphere. Now a team from the […]
Russia Just Launched a New Science Module to the Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is about to get a little bigger. On July 21, the Russian Space Agency launched the station’s newest module into orbit aboard a Proton-M rocket. The module, dubbed Nauka (which means science), is the station’s first new module since […]
A new Balloon-Based Observatory Could Produce Images as Fine as Hubble Launching satellites is an expensive business – at least for now. But satellites are necessary in astronomy for one major reason – it gets telescopes above the atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere and its associated weather patterns are a massive hindrance to collecting good images. […]
Forget About Interstellar Flights. Tiny Light Sails Could be Used to Explore the Solar System Today Solar sails have been receiving a lot of attention lately. In part that is due to a series of high profile missions that have successfully proven the concept. It’s also in part due to the high profile Breakthrough Starshot […]
Image: Hubble views a faraway galaxy through a cosmic lens The center of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is framed by the tell-tale arcs that result from strong gravitational lensing, a striking astronomical phenomenon which can warp, magnify, or even duplicate the appearance of distant galaxies. phys.org Go to Source
Artificial intelligence helps improve NASA’s eyes on the Sun A group of researchers is using artificial intelligence techniques to calibrate some of NASA’s images of the Sun, helping improve the data that scientists use for solar research. The new technique was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on April 13, 2021. phys.org Go to […]
The Moon has Been Mildly Preventing Coastal Erosion, in the 2030s, That Protection Ends Planet Earth is currently experiencing an unprecedented warming trend. Average global temperatures are rising at an accelerated rate in response to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity. These rising temperatures, in turn, result in the release of additional greenhouse gases […]
Scientists Have a new way to Predict the Most Damaging Solar Storms Space is full of hazards. The Earth, and it’s atmosphere, does a great job of shielding us from most of them. But sometimes those hazards are more powerful than even those protections can withstand, and potentially catastrophic events can result. Some of the […]
Planetary nebulae in distant galaxies Using data from the MUSE instrument, researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) succeeded in detecting extremely faint planetary nebulae in distant galaxies. The method used, a filter algorithm in image data processing, opens up new possibilities for cosmic distance measurement—and thus also for determining the Hubble constant. […]
Micrometeorites Churn up the Surface of Europa. If you Want to Find Life, You’ll Need to dig Down a Meter or So In the coming decade, NASA and the ESA will be sending two dedicated missions that will explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. These missions are known as the Europa Clipper and the JUpiter ICy moons […]
Neutron Stars Have Mountains, They’re Just a Fraction of a Millimeter High The universe has some very extreme places in it – and there are few places more extreme than the surface of a neutron star. These ultradense objects form after a supergiant star collapses into a sphere about 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. […]
GLOSTAR: Tracing atomic and molecular gas in the Milky Way By combining two of the most powerful radio telescopes on Earth, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, created the most sensitive maps of the radio emission of large parts of the Northern Galactic plane […]
