Astronomy
Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” IX: What is the Brief Window Hypothesis?
In this latest installment in our Fermi series, we take a look at the possibility that advanced civilizations only have…
Vera Rubin’s Monster 3200-Megapixel Camera Takes its First Picture (in the Lab)
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has taken another step towards first light, projected for some time in 2022. Its enormous…
A Sunspot, Revealed in Incredible Detail by Europe’s Newly Upgraded GREGOR Telescope
I wear glasses for astigmatism. But, as a stargazer with a visual impediment, turns out I’m in good company. The…
Jupiter Probably Has 600 Small, Irregular Moons
The better our technologies get, the better we get at finding objects in space. That's certainly true of Jupiter and…
Behold! The Black Hole Collision Calculator!
A new tool called the Black Hole Collision Calculator let's users see just how powerful a collision between a black…
The Strange, Misshapen Orbits of Planet-Forming Disks in a Triple-Star System
Whatever we grow up with, we think of as normal. Our single solitary yellow star seems normal to us, with…
Astro-Challenge: Adventures in Daytime Astronomy
It's one of the stranger observations in ancient literature. A curious account comes to us by the 1st century AD…
Okay, New Idea. Oumuamua is an Interstellar “Dust Bunny”
Explaining the concept of a dust bunny to small children can be quite amusing. No, it’s not actually alive. It’s…
Extraterrestrial Hunters Figure Out a Way to Expand Their Search for Signals by a Factor of 200
Thanks to a new study by SETI researchers, Breakthrough Listen's search for extraterrestrial intelligence has expanded by a factor of…
Nancy Roman Telescope’s Primary 2.4-Meter Mirror is Ready
The Nancy Roman Telescope has reached another milestone in its development. NASA has announced that the space telescope's primary mirror…