Astronomy
Want the Fastest Solar Sail? Drop it Into the Sun First
A new study from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy shows how a "Sun Diver," a light sail that dives…
Radio Astronomers are Worried About Mega-Constellations and the Square Kilometer Array
With all the satellite constellations heading to space in the near future, there are concerns they will interfere with radio…
Just How Bad are Superflares to a Planet’s Habitability?
Star's can be full of surprises; some of them nasty. While our own Sun appears pretty placid, science has shown…
Matter makes up exactly 31.5±1.3% of the Universe
Weighing the universe is a tricky task, but a team of astronomers have used a clever technique to measure how…
An Amazing Sky Mosaic Courtesy of Stellina…and a New Telescope from Vaonis
Check out this stunning new deep-sky panoramic and new light-weight ‘smartscope,’ courtesy of Vaonis.
The Solar System has a second plane where objects orbit the Sun
Almost all the objects orbiting the sun live in a particular plane, called the ecliptic plane. But a recent analysis…
Planets Don’t Wait for Their Star to Form First
It looks like we may have to update our theories on how stars and planets form in new solar systems.…
Time Flies. NASA Releases a Mosaic of TESS’ View of the Northern Sky After Two Years of Operation
NASA's TESS planet-finding spacecraft completed its primary mission about 3 months ago. TESS's (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) job was to…
Astronomers Will Be Able to Use the World’s Biggest Radio Telescope to Search for Signals from Extraterrestrial Civilizations
Back in April, we reported on how a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, and…
7% of the Stars in the Milky Way’s Center Came From a Single Globular Cluster That Got Too Close and Was Broken Up
The heart of the Milky Way can be a mysterious place. A gigantic black hole resides there, and it's surrounded…