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Astronomers Image 62 Newly-Forming Planetary Systems Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile have now completed one of the largest surveys ever to hunt for planet-forming discs. They were able to find dozens of dusty regions around young stars, directly imaging the swirling gas and dust which hints at the locations of these new worlds. Just like the wide variety in the types of exoplanets that have been discovered, these new data and stunning images show how protoplanetary systems are surprisingly diverse, with different sizes and shapes of disks. In research presented in three new papers, researchers imaged 86 young stars and found 62Read More →

Into Totality: Our Complete Guide to the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse Across North America What to watch for on April 8th as totality sweeps across the continent. The time has come. Seven years ago on an August afternoon, the shadow on the Moon swept across the United States. Now we’re in the one month stretch, leading up to the big ticket astronomical event for 2024: the April 8th total solar eclipse spanning North America. This is the last total solar eclipse for the ‘lower 48 states’ until August 23rd, 2044. Totality does nick remote northwest corner of the state of Alaska on March 30th,Read More →

This Galaxy Was Already Dead When the Universe Was Only 700 Million Years Old When a galaxy runs out of gas and dust, the process of star birth stops. That takes billions of years. But, there’s a galaxy out there that was already dead when the Universe was only 700 billion years old. What happened to it? That’s what an international team of astronomers wants to know. “The first few hundred million years of the Universe was a very active phase, with lots of gas clouds collapsing to form new stars,” said Tobias Looser from the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.Read More →

Perseverance Sees Phobos, Deimos and Mercury Passing in Front of the Sun NASA’s Perseverance rover is busy exploring the Martian surface and collecting samples for eventual return to Earth. But the rover recently took some time to gaze upward and observe the heavens. Using Mastcam-Z, the rover’s primary science camera, Perseverance captured Phobos, Deimos, and Mercury as they transited in front of the Sun. Phobos and Deimos are unusual. They’re lumpy and are often referred to as ‘potato-shaped.’ They’re quite close to their planet as moons go, and they’re most likely captured objects, either asteroids or chunks of debris from the Solar System’s early days.Read More →

How Long Will Advanced Civilizations Try to Communicate With Us? Technosignature research is heating up, with plenty of papers speculating on the nature, and sometimes the longevity, of signals created by technically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. While we haven’t found any so far, that isn’t to say that we won’t, and a better understanding of what to look for would undoubtedly help. Enter a new paper by Amedeo Balbi and Claudio Grimaldi, two professors at the Universita di Roma Tor Vergata and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, respectively. They have taken a statistical model to the problem of understanding how old a technosignature might beRead More →

One of the Oldest Astrolabes Has Both Hebrew and Arabic Markings I always think of planispheres when I think of astrolabes! Navigators used these ancient devices (astrolabes not planispheres) to provide an accurate map of the stars in the sky. To use them you would match up the metal plates to the sky and you could calculate your location. Astrolabes date back to 220BC but one with Hebrew and Arabic markings was found and it is thought to have originated back in the 11th Century. Historian at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Dr Federica Gigante came across the astrolabe by chance in an image on the websiteRead More →

Drones Could Help Map the Lunar Surface with Extreme Precision Exploring the Moon has become increasingly more of a focal point lately, especially with a series of landers recently launched with various degrees of success. One of the difficulties those landers and any future human missions face is understanding the terrain they are landing on and potentially traversing in the case of a rover or human. To help fight this problem, a team of researchers from Switzerland has developed a drone concept that could help map out some of the more interesting, potentially hazardous areas to explore on the Moon. Mapping the Moon has alreadyRead More →

Perseverance is Keeping Track of the Big Picture While it’s Exploring Mars It’s always a real benefit to have scientists on the ground, able to use the wealth of their experience and ingenuity to ‘think on their feet’.  It is therefore always quite challenging to use space probes that to a degree need to be autonomous. This is certainly true of the NASA Perseverance Rover that has been drilling core samples that will one day (hopefully) be returned to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return mission. Until then, a team of Geologists have developed a technique to calculate the orientation of the coreRead More →

Now You Can See Exactly Where Hubble and JWST are Pointed Hubble and JWST are busily scanning the sky, sending home enormous amounts of data. They shift from target to target, completing the required observations. But have you ever wondered what those two space telescopes are doing right at this moment? Now, you can do just that at the new Space Telescope Live website. It will show you what each observatory is scanning, where the objects are in the sky, and what researchers hope to learn. You can even go back or forward in time and see what each telescope has been looking at inRead More →

Betelgeuse’s Surface is Boiling Furiously Of all the stars in the sky, betelgeuse must be among the most enigmatic. One of its many mysteries surrounds the speed of its rotation which is surprisingly fast for a supergiant star. If it were placed where the Sun was, then its photosphere (visible layer) would be out around the orbit of Jupiter and it would be moving at 5 km/s. A new study now hints that instead of high rotation, it may be that the surface is boiling so furiously that it has been mistakingly identified as fast rotation.  Betelgeuse is one of the first stars an amateurRead More →

Crew-8 Arrives at the ISS, Despite a Crack in the Capsule Space travel seems to be a fairly regular occurrence now with crews hopping up and down to the International Space Station. This week, another crew arrived on board a SpaceX Dragon capsule known as Endeavour.  On board were NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps along with cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. The ISS already had seven people on board so this brought the total crew to eleven. The launch almost got cancelled due to a crack in the hatch seal.  The construction of the International Space Station began in 1998 with the launchRead More →

Astronomers Find the Most Massive Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Ever Seen Supermassive black holes have been found at the heart of most galaxies but understanding how they have formed has eluded astronomers for some time. One of the most popular theories suggests they merge over and over again to form larger black holes. A recent discovery may support this however the pair of supermassive black holes are orbiting 24 light years apart and measure an incredible 28 billion solar masses making it the heaviest ever seen.  A black hole is a region of space within which the escape velocity is greater than the speedRead More →