Every day meteoroids blast through our planet’s atmosphere to hit the ground as meteorites. A team of researchers in Italy traced twelve of them to progenitor asteroids that orbit in near-Earth space.
Continue reading “Researchers Match Up 12 Meteorites with the Near-Earth Asteroids They Came From”JWST Turns its Gaze on the Farthest Known Star: Earendel
In March 2022, astronomers announced the discovery of the farthest known star via an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. They named it Earendel, after the old English name for “morning star”. Now, JWST’s Near-infrared Camera (NIRCam) and its NIRSpec spectrometer have taken a look at the same star and revealed more details about it.
Continue reading “JWST Turns its Gaze on the Farthest Known Star: Earendel”Curiosity Had to Route Around a 23-Degree Slope to Reach a Fascinating Field of Craters
It’s hard to believe, but Mars Curiosity Rover has been on Mars doing its thing for 11 years. And, so what’s it doing to celebrate? Heading up a hill, making one of its toughest climbs ever.
Continue reading “Curiosity Had to Route Around a 23-Degree Slope to Reach a Fascinating Field of Craters”Follow a Simulated Journey of the Destruction of ESA’s Aeolus Mission
On July 28th, the European Space Agency commanded its long-working Aeolus wind profile mission to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. It did that and disintegrated into pieces over Antarctica. Of course, satellites do this often. But, Aeolus was different. It maneuvered its way into a safe re-entry profile, a first-of-its kind activity designed to avoid populated regions on Earth.
Continue reading “Follow a Simulated Journey of the Destruction of ESA’s Aeolus Mission”Yes! A JWST Image of the Ring Nebula
Brace yourselves for great JWST views of the iconic Ring Nebula (M57). An international team of astronomers just released a fantastic near-infrared image of the nebula, showing incredible details.
Continue reading “Yes! A JWST Image of the Ring Nebula”Tether a Sunshade to an Asteroid to Slow Down Climate Change
It probably comes as no surprise to people suffering through drastic weather this year that our planet is heating up. Climate change is the culprit and researchers continue to look for ways to mitigate its effects. A scientist at the University of Hawai’i suggests a novel approach: create a giant solar shade in space to block enough sunlight to counter climate change.
Continue reading “Tether a Sunshade to an Asteroid to Slow Down Climate Change”Oops. NASA Accidentally Points Voyager 2’s Antenna Away from Earth, Temporarily Losing Contact
It’s every space mission’s nightmare: losing contact with the spacecraft. In the best case, you recover it right away. Worst case, you never hear from your hardware again. On July 21, controllers lost contact with Voyager 2, out in the depths of space. Now they’re waiting for a reset to catch Voyager 2’s next message when it “phones home”. (Update: on August 2, NASA announced via its Twitter account that it has received a “heartbeat” carrier signal from the spacecraft.)
Continue reading “Oops. NASA Accidentally Points Voyager 2’s Antenna Away from Earth, Temporarily Losing Contact”Astronomers are Watching a Planet Get its Atmosphere Blasted Away into Space
What do you get when a hot young world orbits a wildly unstable young red dwarf? For AU Microsopii b, the answer is: flares from the star tearing away the atmosphere. That catastrophic loss happens in fits and starts, “hiccuping” out its atmosphere at one point and then losing practically none the next.
Continue reading “Astronomers are Watching a Planet Get its Atmosphere Blasted Away into Space”JWST Pierces Through a Thick Nebula to Reveal Newly Forming Binary Stars
In 1985, the physicist Heinz Pagels wrote that star birth was a “veiled and secret event.” That’s because the stellar crêches hide the action. But, ever since the advent of infrared astronomy, astronomers have been able to lift that veil. In particular, the Hubble Space Telescope has studied these systems and now, the Webb Telescope (JWST) gives regular detailed views of stellar nurseries.
Continue reading “JWST Pierces Through a Thick Nebula to Reveal Newly Forming Binary Stars”How Did Supermassive Black Holes Grow So Quickly, So Early?
Supermassive black holes haunt the cores of many galaxies. Yet for all we know about black holes (not nearly enough!), the big ones remain a mystery, particularly when they began forming. Interestingly, astronomers see them in the early epochs of cosmic history. That raises the question: how did they get so big when the Universe was still just a baby?
Continue reading “How Did Supermassive Black Holes Grow So Quickly, So Early?”