Space and astronomy news
The Sun is midway through its life of fusion. It’s about five billion years old, and though its life is far from over, it will undergo some pronounced changes as it ages. Over the next billion years, the Sun will continue to brighten.
That means things will change here on Earth.
Continue reading “Life Might Thrive on the Surface of Earth for an Extra Billion Years”
The Hubble Deep Field and its successor, the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, showed us how vast our Universe is and how it teems with galaxies of all shapes and sizes. They focused on tiny patches of the sky that appeared to be empty and revealed the presence of countless galaxies. Now, astronomers are using the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field and follow-up images to reveal the presence of a large number of supermassive black holes in the early Universe.
This is a shocking result because, according to theory, these massive objects shouldn’t have been so plentiful billions of years ago.
Continue reading “The Early Universe Had a Lot of Black Holes”
Astronomers have solid evidence for the existence of stellar-mass black holes and supermassive black holes. However, evidence for Intermediate Black Holes (IMBHs) is more elusive. Their existence remains hypothetical.
However, study by study, evidence is accumulating for IMBHs. The latest comes from the globular cluster M15, where a fast-moving star suggests the presence of something massive. Could it be an elusive IMBH?
Continue reading “A Star Was Kicked Out of a Globular Cluster by an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole”
Is it time for space lasers yet? Almost.
As time passes, ideas that were once confined to the realm of science fiction become more realistic. It’s true of things like using robots to explore other worlds. Space lasers are a well-used element in science fiction, and we’re approaching the time when they could become a reality.
Where would we put them, and what could we use them for?
Continue reading “There are Plenty of Uses for Powerful Lasers in Space. But Where Should We Put Them?”
When the James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day in 2021, it faced a whole host of intriguing questions. By the time it finally launched, astronomers had a big list of targets begging for the type of detailed observations that only the powerful infrared space telescope could perform. One of the targets was an ancient, massive galaxy that’s basically dead and forms no new stars.
The results are in, and an international team of astronomers know what happened to the quiescent galaxy.
Continue reading “A Black Hole has Almost Halted Star Formation in its Galaxy”
A team of scientists presented a new gravity map of Mars at the Europlanet Science Congress 2024. The map shows the presence of dense, large-scale structures under Mars’ long-gone ocean and that mantle processes are affecting Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System.
Continue reading “A Gravity Map of Mars Uncovers Subsurface Mysteries”
The Milky Way’s outer reaches are coming into view thanks to the JWST. Astronomers pointed the powerful space telescope to a region over 58,000 light-years away called the Extreme Outer Galaxy (EOG). They found star clusters exhibiting extremely high rates of star formation.
Continue reading “The Outer Reaches of the Milky Way are Full of Stars, and the JWST is Observing Them”
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has delayed its launch, but the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover is heading toward completion. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2018, but technical delays prevented it. Now, after dropping Russia from the project because of their invasion, the ESA says it won’t launch before 2028.
But when it does launch and then land on Mars, it will do something no other rover has done: drill down two meters into Mars and collect samples.
Continue reading “How the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin Rover Will Drill for Samples on Mars”
If you enjoyed this summer’s display of aurora borealis, thank the Sun’s corona. The corona is the Sun’s outer layer and is the source of most space weather, including aurorae. The aurora borealis are benign light shows, but not all space weather produces such harmless displays; some of it is dangerous and destructive.
In an effort to understand space weather and the solar corona, the National Science Foundation aimed the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, at the corona to map its magnetic fields.
Continue reading “Groundbreaking New Maps of the Sun’s Coronal Magnetic Fields”
Jupiter’s moon, Io, is the most volcanic body in the Solar System. NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to Io in the last couple of years, giving us our first close-up images of the moon in 25 years.
Recent JunoCam images show a new volcano that appeared sometime after the Galileo spacecraft visited the region.
Continue reading “Juno Sees a Brand New Volcano on Io”