NASA’s New Video Shows You What it’s Like Traveling Close to the Speed of Light NASA has just released an informative video that lets potential interstellar travellers know what they’re in for! The post NASA’s New Video Shows You What it’s Like Traveling Close to the Speed of Light appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Microscopic deformation of a neutron star inferred from a distance of 4500 light-years Imagine that the size of a bacterium is measured from a distance of about 4500 light-years. This would be an incredible measurement, considering that a bacterium is so small that a microscope is required to see it, and what an enormous distance light can travel in 4500 years, given that it can round the Earth more than seven times in just one second. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Could a tabletop experiment detect gravitational waves and determine the quantum nature of gravity? A tabletop gravitational wave detector could take decades to build, but it could answer the most fundamental questions in physics. The post Could a tabletop experiment detect gravitational waves and determine the quantum nature of gravity? appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Kepler’s supernova remnant: Debris from stellar explosion not slowed after 400 years Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to record material blasting away from the site of an exploded star at speeds faster than 20 million miles per hour. This is about 25,000 times faster than the speed of sound on Earth. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Space telescope to study quasars and their host galaxies in three dimensions Supermassive black holes, which likely reside at the centers of virtually all galaxies, are unimaginably dense, compact regions of space from which nothing—not even light—can escape. As such a black hole, weighing in at millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun, devours material, it is surrounded by a swirling disk of gas. When gas from this disk falls towards the black hole, it releases a tremendous amount of energy. This energy creates a brilliant and powerful galactic core called a quasar, whose light can greatly outshine its host galaxy. phys.orgRead More →

New cataclysmic variable star discovered Using NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, astronomers have detected a new bright transient event. After further analysis, the newly found transient source turned out to be a cataclysmic variable (CV) star. The finding is detailed in a paper published August 10 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Robotic telescope finds closest known asteroid to fly by Earth On August 16, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a robotic survey camera located at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, spotted an asteroid that had, just hours earlier, traveled only 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Designated 2020 QG, it is the closest known asteroid to fly by Earth without impacting the planet. The previous known record-holder is asteroid 2011 CQ1, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2011, which passed above Earth about 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) higher than 2020 QG. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

This Distorted Circle is Actually a Galaxy That Looked Very Similar to the Milky Way, Shortly After the Big Bang Using ALMA, a European team of astronomers was able to observe a galaxy as it looked 12 billion years ago and were surprised to see that it looks a lot like how the Milky Way appears today. The post This Distorted Circle is Actually a Galaxy That Looked Very Similar to the Milky Way, Shortly After the Big Bang appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Exploding stars may have caused mass extinction on Earth, study shows Imagine reading by the light of an exploded star, brighter than a full moon—it might be fun to think about, but this scene is the prelude to a disaster when the radiation devastates life as we know it. Killer cosmic rays from nearby supernovae could be the culprit behind at least one mass extinction event, researchers said, and finding certain radioactive isotopes in Earth’s rock record could confirm this scenario. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Remembering Don Arabian, the ‘Mad Genius’ Behind NASA’s Apollo Engineering Team One of the truly unsung heroes of the Apollo program has passed away at age 95. Donald D. Arabian, Chief of the Apollo Test Division, headed the Mission Evaluation Room (MER), which was responsible for solving in-flight problems during the Apollo missions to the Moon.   His nickname was “Mad Don,” and anyone who had … Continue reading “Remembering Don Arabian, the ‘Mad Genius’ Behind NASA’s Apollo Engineering Team” The post Remembering Don Arabian, the ‘Mad Genius’ Behind NASA’s Apollo Engineering Team appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

100 cool worlds found near the Sun How complete is our census of the Sun’s closest neighbors? Astronomers and a team of data-sleuthing volunteers participating in Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, a citizen science project, have discovered roughly 100 cool worlds near the Sun—objects more massive than planets but lighter than stars, known as brown dwarfs. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

The sun may have started its life with a binary companion A new theory published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters by scientists from Harvard University suggests that the sun may once have had a binary companion of similar mass. If confirmed, the presence of an early stellar companion increases the likelihood that the Oort cloud was formed as observed and that Planet Nine was captured rather than formed within the solar system. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Magnetized gas flows feed a young star cluster Observations of magnetic fields in interstellar clouds made of gas and dust indicate that these clouds are strongly magnetized, and that magnetic fields influence the formation of stars within them. A key observation is that the orientation of their internal structure is closely related to that of the magnetic field. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Machine Learning Just Classified Over Half a Million Galaxies Humanity is still a long way away from a fully artificial intelligence system. For now at least, AI is particularly good at some specialized tasks, such as classifying cats in videos.  Now it has a new skill set: identifying spiral patterns in galaxies. As with all AI skills, this one started out with categorized data.  … Continue reading “Machine Learning Just Classified Over Half a Million Galaxies” The post Machine Learning Just Classified Over Half a Million Galaxies appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Indian astronomers investigate open cluster Czernik 3 A team of astronomers from India has performed deep near-infrared photometric observations of an open cluster known as Czernik 3. The study provides important information about the properties of Czernik 3, suggesting that it is a disintegrating old open cluster. The research is available in a paper published August 7 on arXiv.org. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

New tool helps interpret future searches for life on exoplanets Is there life on a distant planet? One way astronomers are trying to find out is by analyzing the light that is scattered off a planet’s atmosphere. Some of that light, which originates from the stars it orbits, has interacted with its atmosphere, and provides important clues to the gases it contains. If gases like oxygen, methane or ozone are detected, that could indicate the presence of living organisms. Such gases are known as biosignatures. A team of scientists from EPFL and Tor Vergata University of Rome has developed a statistical model that can helpRead More →