Astronomers Find a Blinking Star Near the Center of the Milky Way In this week’s edition of new unexplained astronomical phenomena, a team of astronomers led by Dr. Leigh Smith from Cambridge found a star 100 times larger than our sun that nearly disappears from the sky every few decades. They also have no idea […]
Apollo 17 Astronauts Brought Home Samples From the Oldest Impact Crater on the Moon Internal geological processes on the moon are almost non-existent. However, when it gets smacked by a space rock, its surface can change dramatically. Debris from that impact can also travel over large distances, transplanting material from one impact site hundreds of […]
A New Technique for “Seeing” Exoplanet Surfaces Based on the Content of their Atmospheres In November of 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JMST) will make its long-awaited journey to space. This next-generation observatory will observe the cosmos using its advanced infrared suite and reveal many never-before-seen things. By 2024, it will be joined the […]
The Lunar Lantern Could be a Beacon for Humanity on the Moon In October of 2024, NASA’s Artemis Program will return astronauts to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. In the years and decades that follow, multiple space agencies and commercial partners plan to build the infrastructure that […]
The Largest Rotating Objects in the Universe: Galactic Filaments Hundreds of Millions of Light-Years Long We’ve known for a while about the large-scale structure of the Universe. Galaxies reside in filaments hundreds of millions of light-years long, on a backbone of dark matter. And, where those filaments meet, there are galaxy clusters. Between them are […]
Catch New Galactic Nova Herculis 2021 in Hercules the Hero Now’s the time to catch Nova Herculis 2021, before it fades from view. …And then, there were two. Fresh off of the eruption of Nova Cassiopeiae 2021 early this year, another galactic nova made itself known earlier this past weekend, as a ‘new star’ or […]
Black Holes don’t Just Destroy, They Also Help With Star Formation Black holes are the most powerful destructive forces in the universe. They can rip apart a star and scatter its ashes out of the galaxy at nearly the speed of light. But these engines of destruction can also pave the way for new stars […]
CHIME Detected Over 500 Fast Radio Burst in its First Year, Providing new Clues to What’s Causing Them Much like Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Fast Radio Burst (FRBs) are one of those crazy cosmic phenomena that continue to mystify astronomers. These incredibly bright flashes register only in the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum, […]
NASA has Approved a Space Telescope That Will Scan the Skies for Dangerous Near-Earth Asteroids A lot of the threats humanity faces come from ourselves. If we were listing them, we’d include tribalism, greed, and the fact that we’re evolved primates, and our brains have a lot in common with animal brains. Our animalistic brains […]
Rare Triple Galaxy Merger With at Least Two Supermassive Black Holes One of the best things about that universe is that there is so much to it. If you look hard enough, you can most likely find any combination of astronomical events happening. Not long ago we reported on research that found 7 separate instances […]
Iridescent Clouds on Mars Seen by Curiosity Laying on a grassy field staring at the cloud formations in the sky and coming up with harebrained ideas about their shapes is a common feature in childhood summers – at least as they’re portrayed in media. Someday that image might translate to a child laying on a […]
Blue Origin Auction Ends With a Closing Bid of $28 million On July 20th,, Blue Origin will conduct the first crewed launch of their New Shepard rocket, the reusable launch vehicle that will send small payloads and customers to space. In addition to Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark, the company announced that one of […]
Astronomers Have Found the Perfect Exoplanet to Study Another World’s Atmosphere TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has found a new planet, and the discovery of this sub-Neptune exoplanet has scientists excited about atmospheres. The combination of the planet’s size, its thick atmosphere, and its orbit around a small M-class star close to Earth provides researchers […]
Asteroid 16 Psyche Might Not be a Solid Chunk of Metal After All, but Another Rubble Pile Asteroid 16 Psyche, often sensationally dubbed the $10 quadrillion dollar asteroid due to its composition of valuable metals, may not be entirely what it seems. A new paper out of the University of Arizona suggests that the asteroid […]
What’s the Connection Between the Chemistry of a Star and the Formation of its Planets? Scientists seem to have come up with a new parlor game – how many ways can we potentially detect exoplanets? The two most common methods, the transit method and the Doppler method, each have their own problems. Alternative methods are […]
It’s Time for Perseverance to get to Work Given all of the news surrounding the landing and first few months of operation of the Perseverance rover on Mars, it might be surprising that its actual science mission hasn’t even started yet. That changed on June 1st when the rover officially kicked off its first science […]
How To Search the Chemical Makeup of Exoplanet Atmospheres for Hints at Their History Author’s note – this article was written with Dr. Vincent Kofman, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), and the lead author on the research it discusses. Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in the recent decades. Planet hunters […]
Relativity Space Gets a Huge Investment to Take on SpaceX With Reusable Rockets They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and that competition is a great way to foster progress and innovation. If these truisms are to be believed, then the NewSpace industry is destined to benefit from the presence of Relativity Space, […]
ESA is Joining NASA With Their own Mission to Venus It’s an exciting time to be a Venus watcher. Our sister planet, which has been the target of only one mission since the 1980s, is now the focus of not one, not two, but three missions from NASA and ESA. Combined, they promise to give […]
What Mission Could Detect Oceans at Uranus’ Moons? Exploration of ocean worlds has become a hot topic of late, primarily due to their role as a potential harbor for alien life. Moons that have confirmed subsurface oceans garner much of the attention, such as Enceladus and Europa. But they may not be the only ones. […]
