High-speed supernova reveals earliest moments of a dying star An international team of scientists, including astronomers from the Universities of Leicester, Bath and Warwick, have found evidence for the existence of a ‘hot cocoon’ of material enveloping a relativistic jet escaping a dying star. This research is been published online today and in print in Nature tomorrow. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Researchers discover black hole in our galaxy spinning rapidly around itself A University of Southampton-led project has shown a black hole spinning near its maximum possible rate around its axis. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Fast, very high-energy gamma-ray flare detected from the blazar BL Lacertae Using Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes, an international group of astronomers has detected a fast, very high-energy (VHE) flare from the blazar BL Lacertae. The finding is detailed in a paper published January 7 on the arXiv pre-print repository. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Jupiter Meets Venus at Dawn in a Close Conjunction You might be asking yourself: Where have all the planets gone? With Mars past its epic opposition in 2018 and still lingering in the evening sky, all other naked eye planets are loitering in the early dawn for January 2019. Sure, it’s cold outside this month for folks up north, but January dawn skies offer … Continue reading “Jupiter Meets Venus at Dawn in a Close Conjunction” The post Jupiter Meets Venus at Dawn in a Close Conjunction appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Titan’s Thick Clouds Obscure our View, but Cassini Took these Images in Infrared, Showing the Moon’s Surface Features Saturn’s moon Titan is a very strange place. It’s surrounded by a dense, opaque atmosphere, the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere to speak of. It has lakes of liquid methane on its surface, maybe some cryovolcanoes, and some scientists speculate that it could support a form of life. Very weird life. … Continue reading “Titan’s Thick Clouds Obscure our View, but Cassini Took these Images in Infrared, Showing the Moon’s Surface Features” The post Titan’s Thick Clouds Obscure our View, but Cassini TookRead More →
A New Technique to Figure Out How Old Stars Are Our understanding of the universe, and of the Milky Way, is built on an edifice of individual pieces of knowledge, all related to each other. But each of those pieces is only so accurate. The more accurate we can make one of the pieces of knowledge, the more accurate our understanding of the whole thing … Continue reading “A New Technique to Figure Out How Old Stars Are” The post A New Technique to Figure Out How Old Stars Are appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Bizarre Double Star System Flipped its Planetary Disk on its Side An international research team recently found a binary star system with a debris disk that orbits around their poles. The post Bizarre Double Star System Flipped its Planetary Disk on its Side appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Incredible Descent Video of the Chinese Lander to the Lunar Far Side On January 2nd, 2019, China’s Chang’e-4 lander made a successful landing on the far side of the Moon. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) report that after 9 days on the surface, the mission is in good shape. The Yutu-2 rover has been deployed and has begun exploring … Continue reading “Incredible Descent Video of the Chinese Lander to the Lunar Far Side” The post Incredible Descent Video of the Chinese Lander to the Lunar Far Side appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go toRead More →
Habitable Planets Around Red Dwarf Stars Might not get Enough Photons to Support Plant Life A new study shows that planets orbiting red dwarf stars may not get enough radiation to support photosynthesis. The post Habitable Planets Around Red Dwarf Stars Might not get Enough Photons to Support Plant Life appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Astronomers See the Exact Moment a Supernova Turned into a Black Hole (or Neutron Star) On June 17th 2018, the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey’s twin telescopes spotted something extraordinarily bright in the sky. The source was 200 million light years away in the constellation Hercules. The object was given the name AT2018cow or “The Cow.” The Cow flared up quickly, and then just as quickly it was … Continue reading “Astronomers See the Exact Moment a Supernova Turned into a Black Hole (or Neutron Star)” The post Astronomers See the Exact Moment a Supernova Turned into a Black Hole (or Neutron Star)Read More →
Neutrino Telescopes Look Deep in the Earth and Deep into Space Neutrino telescopes are another kind of telescope to go alongside telescopes for visible light, x-rays, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, radio, gamma ray and gravity waves. The post Neutrino Telescopes Look Deep in the Earth and Deep into Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Team discovers new way supermassive black holes are ‘fed’ Supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions times more than our sun and lie at the center of most galaxies. A supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun is situated in the heart of our very own Milky Way. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Double star system flips planet-forming disk into pole position New research led by an astronomer at the University of Warwick has found the first confirmed example of a double star system that has flipped its surrounding disc to a position that leaps over the orbital plane of those stars. The international team of astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) to obtain high-resolution images of the Asteroid belt-sized disc. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
The orderly chaos of black holes During the formation of a black hole, a bright burst of very energetic light in the form of gamma rays is produced, these events are called gamma ray bursts. The physics behind this phenomenon includes many of the least understood fields within physics today: general gravity, extreme temperatures and acceleration of particles far beyond the energy of the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Supernova SN 2018byg triggered by a helium-shell double detonation, study finds Astronomers have recently conducted photometric and spectroscopic observations of SN 2018byg, a peculiar Type Ia supernova. Results of these observations, presented in a paper published January 3 on the arXiv pre-print server, suggest that this cosmic explosion was caused by double detonation of a massive helium shell. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
One day our sun will solidify into a giant crystal orb Our sun and billions of stars just like it are headed for a strange, cold destiny. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Giant Streak Structure Found in Venus’ Cloudtops A team of researchers in Japan has discovered a gigantic streak structure in the cloud tops of Venus. The discovery is based on observations of Venus by the Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki. The findings were published in January 9th in the journal Nature Communications. Venus is unlike any other planet in the Solar System. The entire … Continue reading “Giant Streak Structure Found in Venus’ Cloudtops” The post Giant Streak Structure Found in Venus’ Cloudtops appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
In the far Future our Sun will Turn Into a Solid Crystalline White Dwarf. Here’s How it’ll Happen New research using some of the latest Gaia mission data has revealed what happens to stars like our Sun once they become white dwarfs. The post In the far Future our Sun will Turn Into a Solid Crystalline White Dwarf. Here’s How it’ll Happen appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Uh oh, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 is Down On January 8th, an important piece of equipment on the Hubble Space Telescope went down. The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) suspended its operations because of a hardware. The Hubble team is investigating the anomaly, and during this time the space telescope’s other instruments are working normally and continuing their science operations. The WFC3 was … Continue reading “Uh oh, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 is Down” The post Uh oh, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 is Down appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Canadian Telescope Finds 13 More Fast Radio Bursts Including the Second One Ever Seen Repeating Canadian scientists using the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) have detected 13 FRBs (Fast Radio Bursts), including the second-ever repeating one. And they think they’ll find even more. CHIME is an innovative radio telescope in the Okanagan Valley region in British Columbia, Canada. It was completed in 2017, and its mission is to act … Continue reading “Canadian Telescope Finds 13 More Fast Radio Bursts Including the Second One Ever Seen Repeating” The post Canadian Telescope Finds 13 More Fast Radio Bursts Including the Second One Ever Seen RepeatingRead More →
