Calculate the Number of Alien Civilizations in the Milky Way for Yourself. A new online tool created by a team of physicists allows users to calculate how many alien civilization could be out there for themselves! The post Calculate the Number of Alien Civilizations in the Milky Way for Yourself. appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Amazing View of How Dust Storms Grow on Mars In 2018, Mars experienced one of its global dust storms, a phenomenon seen nowhere else. As science would have it, there were no fewer than six spacecraft in orbit around Mars at the time, and two surface rovers. This was an unprecedented opportunity to watch and study the storm. Martian Global Dust Storms (GDS) occur … Continue reading “Amazing View of How Dust Storms Grow on Mars” The post Amazing View of How Dust Storms Grow on Mars appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
New Hubble Photos of Planetary Nebulae Planetary nebulae are astronomy’s gateway drug. Their eye-catching forms make us wonder what process created them, and what else is going on up there in the night sky. They’re some of the most beautiful, ephemeral looking objects in all of nature. The Hubble Space Telescope is responsible for many of our most gorgeous images of … Continue reading “New Hubble Photos of Planetary Nebulae” The post New Hubble Photos of Planetary Nebulae appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Beneath the surface of our galaxy’s water worlds Out beyond our solar system, visible only as the smallest dot in space with even the most powerful telescopes, other worlds exist. Many of these worlds, astronomers have discovered, may be much larger than Earth and completely covered in water—basically ocean planets with no protruding land masses. What kind of life could develop on such a world? Could a habitat like this even support life? phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Astronomers Just Detected Either the Least Massive Black Hole, or a Strange and Massive Neutron Star Somewhere around 2.5 solar masses is the line between black holes and neutron stars. Now we’ve found an object right on the edge. The post Astronomers Just Detected Either the Least Massive Black Hole, or a Strange and Massive Neutron Star appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Rogue’s gallery of dusty star systems reveals exoplanet nurseries Astronomers this month released the largest collection of sharp, detailed images of debris disks around young stars, showcasing the great variety of shapes and sizes of stellar systems during their prime planet-forming years. Surprisingly, nearly all showed evidence of planets. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Neptune-sized planet discovered orbiting young, nearby star For more than a decade, astronomers have searched for planets orbiting AU Microscopii, a nearby star still surrounded by a disk of debris left over from its formation. Now scientists using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and retired Spitzer Space Telescope report the discovery of a planet about as large as Neptune that circles the young star in just over a week. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Physicist discusses eRosita mission It may well mark a revolution in X-ray astronomy: The eRosita space telescope, which was launched last July, has completed its first complete survey of the sky. Over a million objects are visible on the map it has produced. Astronomers are excited about the results from the observatory. It was developed under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and is intended to survey the entire sky with a previously unattained spectral and spatial resolution. We spoke with Peter Predehl, the scientific Director of eRosita, about the mission. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
New remnant radio galaxy detected Using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), astronomers from South Africa and India have discovered a new remnant radio galaxy. The newly detected object, designated J1615+5452 has a size exceeding 300,000 light years and showcases a diffuse amorphous radio emission. The finding is detailed in a paper published June 17 on arXiv.org. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Pluto and Other Kuiper Belt Objects Started Out With Water Oceans, and Have Been Slowly Freezing Solid for Billions of Years It seems unlikely that an ocean could persist on a world that never gets closer than 30 astronomical units from the Sun. But that’s the case with Pluto. Evidence shows that it has a sub-surface ocean between 100 to 180 km thick, at the boundary between the core and the mantle. Other Kuiper Belt Objects … Continue reading “Pluto and Other Kuiper Belt Objects Started Out With Water Oceans, and Have Been Slowly Freezing Solid for Billions of Years” The post Pluto and OtherRead More →
Another Starship Test Ends in an Explosion At their Boca Chica test facility, SpaceX tested another Starship prototype (SN7) to the point of failure, which resulted in another explosive release of cryogenic liquid nitrogen. The post Another Starship Test Ends in an Explosion appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
There’s no evidence that dark matter interacts with any other force but gravity Most of the universe is made of one of two kinds of mysterious substances, called dark matter and dark energy. From all the evidence, these two cosmic components only interact with “normal” matter through the gravitational force. And a recent nuclear experiment reveals no presence of any dark contamination in the bonds between atomic nuclei … Continue reading “There’s no evidence that dark matter interacts with any other force but gravity” The post There’s no evidence that dark matter interacts with any other force but gravity appeared first on Universe Today. UniverseRead More →
Planets Form in Just a Few Hundred Thousand Years Astronomers like to observe young planets forming in circumstellar debris disks, the rotating rings of material around young stars. But when they measure the amount of material in those disks, they don’t contain enough material to form large planets. That discrepancy has puzzled astronomers. The answer might come down to timing. A new study suggests … Continue reading “Planets Form in Just a Few Hundred Thousand Years” The post Planets Form in Just a Few Hundred Thousand Years appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
University students develop AI to detect fast radio bursts West Virginia University’s Duncan Lorimer might be the godfather of the fast radio burst, but a pair of international students has taken exploring these mysterious cosmic flashes to a new level. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
A Repeating Fast Radio Burst Has Been Found. It Flares for 4 Days and then Remains Silent for 12 Days Five hundred million light-years from Earth, there is a deeply unusual object. It is radio silent for 12 days, then erupts in bright radio bursts. We still aren’t sure what the object is. The post A Repeating Fast Radio Burst Has Been Found. It Flares for 4 Days and then Remains Silent for 12 Days appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Comet U6 Lemmon Brightens in July Comet U6 Lemmon promises to be a fine binocular object at dusk. The post Comet U6 Lemmon Brightens in July appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
If You Could See in X-rays, This is What the Universe Would Look Like X-ray astronomy helps scientists study neutron stars, binary star systems, and supernova remnants, and even helps detect black holes. But even if human eyes had the ability to see X-rays, we couldn’t just look up at the night sky and see these amazing objects since Earth’s atmosphere absorbs and blocks X-rays. So, thank goodness for … Continue reading “If You Could See in X-rays, This is What the Universe Would Look Like” The post If You Could See in X-rays, This is What the Universe Would Look Like appeared first onRead More →
Either the heaviest-known neutron star or the lightest-known black hole: LIGO-Virgo finds mystery object in ‘mass gap’ When the most massive stars die, they collapse under their own gravity and leave behind black holes; when stars that are a bit less massive die, they explode in a supernova and leave behind dense, dead remnants of stars called neutron stars. For decades, astronomers have been puzzled by a gap that lies between neutron stars and black holes: the heaviest known neutron star is no more than 2.5 times the mass of our sun, or 2.5 solar masses, and the lightest known black hole is about fiveRead More →
CGCS 673 is a semi-regular variable carbon star, study finds Astronomers from Malta and Spain have conducted an observational campaign aimed at investigating the periodic behavior of a carbon star known as CGCS 673. The observations found that the studied object is a semi-regular variable star. The discovery is reported in a paper published June 15 on the arXiv pre-print repository. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Breakthrough Listen releases catalog of “Exotica” – objects of interest as “technosignatures” Breakthrough Listen, the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, today released an innovative catalog of “Exotica”—a diverse list of objects of potential interest to astronomers searching for technosignatures (indicators of technology developed by extraterrestrial intelligence). The catalog is a collection of over 700 distinct targets intended to include “one of everything” in the observed universe—ranging from comets to galaxies, from mundane objects to the most rare and violent celestial phenomena. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
