Astronomy Archives

March 16, 2022March 10, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Neutron Star

A typical neutron star with a radius of eleven kilometres is about as large as a medium-sized city. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll feel a little dense after reading about today’s topic: neutron stars!

March 15, 2022March 9, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Nova

A classical novae contains a white dwarf, and a larger companion star in orbit around it. The white dwarf attracts gas from its companion, leading to a massive explosion. Illustration Credit: David Hardy

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll feel like a brand new person after today’s topic: nova!

March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 by Evan Gough

Planets Have Just Started to Form in This Binary System

Binary stars are common and imaging their planets will be a challenge. How can astronomers block all that light so they can see the planets? This artist's illustration shows the eclipsing binary star Kepler 16, as seen from the surface of an exoplanet in the system. Image Credit: NASA

Astronomers have watched the young binary star system SVS 13 for decades. Astronomers don’t know much about how planets form around proto-binary stars like SVS 13, and the earliest stages are especially mysterious. A new study based on three decades of research reveals three potentially planet-forming disks around the binary star.

March 14, 2022March 9, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Open Cluster

Pleiades stars. Image: NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar Observatory. Credit: D. Soderblom and E. Nelan (STScI), F. Benedict and B. Arthur (U. Texas), and B. Jones (Lick Obs.)

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll start drifting away from your friends after reading today’s today: open clusters!

March 12, 2022March 12, 2022 by Scott Alan Johnston

An 1874 Citizen Science Project Studying the Aurora Borealis Helped Inspire Time Zones

For millennia, humans have gazed at the northern lights with wonder, pondering their nature and source. Even today, these once mysterious phenomena still evoke awe, though we understand them a little better now. Still, most of our knowledge about the northern lights has come recently, in the last century or two. Astronomers and meteorologists of the 1800s worked for years to understand the aurora, wondering if they were a feature of Earth’s atmospheric weather, of outer space, or, perhaps, something that straddled the boundary in-between. This centuries-old attempt to understand the northern lights was an immense, international-scale project, and, through fortunate happenstance, it even helped inspire one of the underlying foundations of modern society – time zones.

March 12, 2022March 9, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Planetary Nebula

ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) has captured this unusual view of the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a planetary nebula located 700 light-years away. The coloured picture was created from images taken through Y, J and K infrared filters. While bringing to light a rich background of stars and galaxies, the telescope's infrared vision also reveals strands of cold nebular gas that are mostly obscured in visible images of the Helix. — ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) has captured this unusual view of the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a planetary nebula located 700 light-years away.

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll be confused with an actual planet after today’s topic: planetary nebula!

March 11, 2022March 11, 2022 by Evan Gough

The Sun is Slowly Tearing This Comet Apart

A fine sungrazer nears its doom as seen via SOHOs LASCO C2 camera. Image credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO/NRLSungrazers

Using ground-based and space-based observations, a team of researchers has been monitoring a difficult-to-see comet carefully. It’s called Comet 323P/SOHO, and it was discovered over 20 years ago in 1999. But it’s difficult to observe due to its proximity to the Sun.

They’ve found that the Sun is slowly tearing the comet to pieces.

March 11, 2022March 9, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Planet

NASA’s New Horizons mission science team has produced this updated panchromatic (black-and-white) global map of Pluto. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll finally have a place in the solar system after today’s topic: the planet!

March 11, 2022March 11, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Neutron Stars Could be the Best way to Measure Dark Energy

An artistic rendering of two neutron stars merging. Credit: NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State/A. Simonnet

Dark energy is central to our modern theory of cosmology. We know the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, and the clearest explanation is that some kind of energy is driving it. Since this energy doesn’t emit light, we call it dark energy. But simply giving dark energy a name doesn’t mean we fully understand it. We can see what dark energy does, but its fundamental nature is perhaps the biggest scientific mystery we have.

March 10, 2022March 9, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Protoplanetary Disk

This is the sharpest image ever taken by ALMA — sharper than is routinely achieved in visible light with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tauri. These new ALMA observations reveal substructures within the disc that have never been seen before and even show the possible positions of planets forming in the dark patches within the system. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll just be getting started with today’s topic: protoplanetary disk!