Astronomers see a Rare “Double Quasar” in a Pair of Merging Galaxies What’s better than a quasar? That’s right, two quasars. Astronomers have spotted for the first time two rare double-quasars, and the results show us the dynamic, messy consequences of galaxy formation. Every galaxy is thought to host a supermassive black hole in its […]
Blue Origin Will Finally Fly Passengers to the Edge of Space in July Things have been heating up lately over at Blue Origin, the commercial spaceflight company launched by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Since Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon to take a more hands-on role with his other projects, the company has made […]
Starlink and OneWeb Have Their First Avoidance Maneuver With Each Other’s Constellations Two companies, OneWeb and SpaceX, are racing to put fleets of thousands of communication satellites into orbit. In March they had their first near-miss. Avoidance maneuvers were successful, but how many more close calls will they face in the future? SpaceX has already […]
How can White Dwarfs Produce Such Powerful Magnetic Fields? White dwarfs have some surprisingly strong magnetic fields, and one team of astronomers may have finally found the reason why. When they cool, they can activate a dynamo mechanism similar to what powers the Earth’s magnetic field. Some white dwarfs have magnetic fields a million times […]
Ingenuity Makes a one-way Trip for the First Time, Flying to a new Landing Site Ever feel like no matter how far you fly you end up in the same spot? Ingenuity certainly does. The helicopter that has been making dozens of headlines lately for all of the firsts it is achieving as part of […]
Scientists catch exciting magnetic waves in action in the Sun’s photosphere Researchers have confirmed the existence of magnetic plasma waves, known as Alfvén waves, in the Sun’s photosphere. The study, published in Nature Astronomy, provides new insights into these fascinating waves that were first discovered by the Nobel Prize winning scientist Hannes Alfvén in 1947. […]
Research sheds more light on the nature of a complex planetary nebula Astronomers have performed high-resolution observations of a complex planetary nebula known as NGC 1514. Results of the study provide essential information about morpho-kinematical structure and chemical composition of this nebula, which could help researchers to better understand its nature. The research was published […]
NASA is Getting Serious About a Radio Telescope on the Moon It’s widely known by now that the “dark side” of the moon, made famous by Pink Floyd, isn’t actually dark. It gets as much sunlight as the side that is tidally locked facing Earth. However, it is dark in one very important way – […]
Both Uranus and Neptune Have Really Bizarre Magnetic Fields The magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune are really, seriously messed up. And we don’t know why. The magnetic fields of most planets (if they even have one) are pretty straightforward. The planet spins in a certain direction, and the field roughly lines up with that […]
First discovery of methanol in a warm planet-forming disk An international team of researchers led by Alice Booth (Leiden University, the Netherlands) have discovered methanol-ijs in the warm part of a planet-forming disk. The methanol cannot have been produced there and must have originated in the cold gas clouds from which the star and the […]
In the emptiness of space, Voyager 1 detects plasma ‘hum’ Voyager 1—one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space—still works and zooms toward infinity. phys.org Go to Source
A new Method Simulates the Universe 1000 Times Faster Cosmologists love universe simulations. Even models covering hundreds of millions of light years can be useful for understanding fundamental aspects of cosmology and the early universe. There’s just one problem – they’re extremely computationally intensive. A 500 million light year swath of the universe could take […]
Young Stars can Evaporate Nearby Disks Before They can Form Planets Many planetary systems may get snuffed out before they even get a chance to form, according to new research. The culprit: nearby stars, capable of evaporating entire protoplanetary disks just when they begin to form. Stars tend to form in clusters as a single […]
New sub-Neptune exoplanet discovered by astronomers A team of astronomers from the Grenoble Alpes University in France and elsewhere, reports the detection of a new sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting an M dwarf star. The newly found alien world, designated TOI-269 b, is nearly three times larger than the Earth. The finding was detailed in a paper […]
High-mass stars are formed not from dust disk but from debris A Dutch-led team of astronomers has discovered that high-mass stars are formed differently from their smaller siblings. Whereas small stars are often surrounded by an orderly disk of dust and matter, the supply of matter to large stars is a chaotic mess. The researchers […]
It’s Official, Astronaut Bill Nelson is NASA’s new Administrator On March 19th, 2021, the Biden Administration announced that they had nominated a successor for the role of NASA Administrator. Their nominee was Sen. Clarence William Nelson II (aka. Bill Nelson), a Democratic Senator from Florida, an attorney, and a former payload specialist at NASA. On […]
Volcanoes on Mars Might Still be Active Back in March, NASA’s InSight lander detected two large quakes from a geologically active region of Mars called the Cerberus Fossae. Now, using imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which circles the red planet at an altitude of about 300km, researchers have discovered that the Cerberus Fossae region […]
Mars Helicopter Completes its 4th Flight. 117 Seconds of Airtime On April 30th, 2021, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter achieved yet another milestone and set new records with its fourth flight on Mars. This time around, the helicopter took off at 12:33 AM Mars Standard Time (10:49 AM EDT; 07:49 AM PDT) and ascended to an […]
We Could Detect Extraterrestrial Satellite Megaconstellations Within a few Hundred Light-Years Starlink is one of the most ambitious space missions we’ve ever undertaken. The current plan is to put 12,000 communication satellites in low-Earth orbit, with the possibility of another 30,000 later. Just getting them into orbit is a huge engineering challenge, and with so […]
A barred galaxy’s massive molecular inflow Large amounts of gas are sometimes funneled to a galaxy’s nuclear regions, with profound consequences. The gas triggers starburst activity and can also feed the supermassive black hole, converting it into an active galactic nucleus (AGN); indeed the supermassive black holes in AGN are thought to gain most of […]
