Brian Koberlein
An Ambitious New Technology Might be Needed to See Other Earths
NASA and its partners are starting to develop plans for the Habitable Worlds Observatory flagship mission that's due to launch…
The Milky Way's Disk is Warped. Is That Because our Dark Matter Halo is Tilted?
Astronomers have measured the Milky Way's shape and found that the disk is warped and not a flat spiral like…
A New Observatory Will Spot Core-Collapse Supernovae Before They Explode
Although we haven't had a supernova explode nearby in a few hundred years, it's just a matter of time before…
A 2022 Gamma Ray Burst Was So Powerful, it was Detected by Spacecraft Across the Solar System
Gamma-ray bursts are some of the most powerful explosions ever detected, emitting more radiation than the rest of their host…
If Neutron Stars Have Mountains, They Should Generate Gravitational Waves
Astronomers have discovered the gravitational waves released by colliding black holes, neutron stars, and even the background waves from merging…
Has the First Biosignature Been Found on an Exoplanet?
Astronomers have found tentative evidence of a biosignature on an alien world, but we are far from proving that extraterrestrial…
Do The Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks Really Indicate Newly Forming Planets?
Modern instruments like ALMA have revealed newly forming stars surrounded by accretion disks. These images are so sensitive you can…
JWST Might Have Imaged a Hycean World for the First Time, With a Hydrogen-Rich Atmosphere and a Deep Planet-Wide Water Ocean
Astronomers have directed JWST to examine the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18 b, which orbits a cool dwarf star…
The Closest Black Holes to Earth are Probably Hidden in This Nearby Star Cluster
The Hyades cluster is the closest open star cluster to Earth, located at a distance of about 150 light-years. Although…
The Case for a Small Universe
Astronomers don't know if the Universe is finite or infinite. Whatever the case, it's larger than the Observable Universe, which…