Carolyn Collins Petersen
The Bright Core of This Spiral Galaxy Reveals an Actively Feeding Supermassive Black Hole
Hubble Space Telescope observes a lot of galaxies. Some of them are wild-looking while others seem fairly placid. Recently, it…
Two “Super Mercury” Exoplanets Found in a Single System
There's a star system out there with three super-Earth planets and two super-Mercuries. Super-Earths are fairly familiar types of exoplanets,…
The Moon was Pummeled by Asteroids at the Same Time the Dinosaurs Died. Coincidence?
It only takes a quick look at the Moon to see its impact-beaten surface. There are craters everywhere. Some of…
DART Impact Seen by Hubble and Webb
What happens when you whack a little asteroid with an even littler spacecraft? People around the world watched on the…
Alaska Has New Lakes. Unfortunately, They’re Releasing a lot of Methane
A NASA scientist is finding newly formed lakes in Alaska that are belching greenhouse gases at a high rate. The…
Another Ghostly Spiral Galaxy Revealed by JWST
The famous American baseball player once said, "You can observe a lot just by watching." That's certainly true of the…
Climate Change is Making the Skies Worse for Astronomy
Light pollution. Satellite trains and radio frequency interference. Encroaching civilization. These all pose threats to ground-based astronomy. But, did anyone…
Gravity Really Tangled up the Light From a Distant Quasar
Way back in 1979, astronomers spotted two nearly identical quasars that seemed close to each other in the sky. These…
There’s a Blob of Gas Orbiting Around the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
Sagittarius A* (Sag A) is usually a pretty quiet object, as supermassive black holes go. It's not wildly active, like…
Habitable Planets Will Most Likely be Cold, Dry “Pale Yellow Dots”
Remember all the habitable planets we've seen in science fiction movies? There's wintry Hoth, for example, and overwhelmingly hot Dune.…