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The New Earth-Sized Planet Hunting Telescope ExTrA is Now Online Ever since the Kepler space telescope began discovering thousands of exoplanets in our galaxy, astronomers have been eagerly awaiting the day when next-generation missions are deployed. These include the much-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to take to space in 2019, but also the many ground-based observatories that are currently being constructed. One of these is the Exoplanets in Transits and their Atmospheres (ExTrA) project, which is the latest addition to the ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Using the Transit Method, this facility will rely on three 60-centimeter (23.6 in) telescopes toRead More →

Where’s the Line Between Massive Planet and Brown Dwarf Star? When is a Brown Dwarf star not a star at all, but only a mere Gas Giant? And when is a Gas Giant not a planet, but a celestial object more akin to a Brown Dwarf? These questions have bugged astronomers for years, and they go to the heart of a new definition for the large celestial bodies that populate solar systems. An astronomer at Johns Hopkins University thinks he has a better way of classifying these objects, and it’s not based only on mass, but on the company the objects keep, and how theRead More →

Perhaps the Best Part of Electron’s Successful Launch was its Payload: the Humanity Sphere. This past weekend, the New Zealand-based aerospace company Rocket Lab reached another milestone. On Sunday, January 21st, the company conducted the second launch – the first having taken place this past summer – of its Electron booster. This two-stage, lightweight rocket is central to the company’s vision of reducing the costs of individual launches by sending light payloads to orbit with regular frequency. This mission was also important because it was the first time that the company sent payloads into orbit. In addition to several commercial payloads, the launch also sentRead More →

This is the Surface of a Giant Star, 350 Times Larger Than the Sun When it comes to looking beyond our Solar System, astronomers are often forced to theorize about what they don’t know based on what they do. In short, they have to rely on what we have learned studying the Sun and the planets from our own Solar System in order to make educated guesses about how other star systems and their respective bodies formed and evolved. For example, astronomers have learned much from our Sun about how convection plays a major role in the life of stars. Until now, they have notRead More →

Finally! SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Does its Static Fire Test. Actual Flight Should Be “In A Week Or So” The long-awaited Static Fire of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has been declared a success by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. After this successful test, the first launch of the Falcon Heavy is imminent, with Musk saying in a Tweet, “Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so.” This is a significant milestone for the Falcon Heavy, considering that SpaceX initially thought the Heavy’s first flight would be in 2013. The first launch for the Falcon HeavyRead More →

This was the Snowstorm Rosetta Saw When it Got 79 km Away From Comet 67P In August of 2014, the ESA’s Rosetta mission made history when it rendezvoused with the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. For the next two years, the probe flew alongside the comet and conducted detailed studies of it. And in November of 2014, Rosetta deployed its Philae probe onto the comet, which was the first time in history that a lander was deployed to the surface of a comet. During the course of its mission, Rosetta revealed some truly remarkable things about this comet, including data on its composition, its gaseous halo, and howRead More →

NASA’s Aqua Satellite Watches Ships Crossing the Atlantic Ocean Earth, when viewed from space, is a pretty spectacular thing to behold. From orbit, one can see every continent, landmass, and major feature. Weather patterns are also eerily clear from space, with everything from hurricanes to auroras appearing as a single system. On top of that, it is only from orbit that the full extent of human activity can be truly appreciated. For instance, when one hemisphere of Earth passes from day into night, one can see the patchwork of urban development by picking out the filamentary structure of lights. And as NASA’s Aqua satellite recentlyRead More →