Space and astronomy news
A ‘barely there’ lunar eclipse will flirt with the shadow of the Earth Friday evening.
Out watching the Full Flower Moon Friday night? If you’re in the correct hemisphere, you might notice that the shade and hue of the Moon is a bit off its usual pearly white, especially along one edge.
It’s not your imagination: a subtle ‘penumbral lunar eclipse’ is indeed underway, as the Moon passes through the bright outer shadow edge of the Earth.
Continue reading “May 5th’s ‘Teaser’ Lunar Eclipse”
If we ever find life on other worlds, it is unlikely to be a powerful message from space. It’s certainly possible that an alien civilization specifically sends us a radio message like a scene out of Contact, but the more likely scenario is that we observe some kind of biological signature in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, such as oxygen or chlorophyll. But as a recent study shows, that could be more difficult than we thought.
Continue reading “Even if There's Life on TRAPPIST-1, We Probably Can't Detect it”
The Zhurong Rover has sat unmoving and unresponsive on Mars since May 20th, 2022, when one of the planet’s infamous dust storms forced the science team to switch the rover to hibernation mode. It was expected to wake in late December, but has yet to show any signs of activity. Last week, the Rover’s chief designer, Zhang Rongqiao, offered an update on the rover’s status.
Continue reading “China Finally Tells us What's Going on With its Mars Rover”
When it comes to cosmic eye candy, planetary nebulae are at the top of the candy bowl. Like fingerprints—or maybe fireworks displays—each one is different. What factors are at work to make them so unique from one another?
Continue reading “Each Planetary Nebula is Unique. Why Do They Look So Different?”
The field of astronomy is about to be revolutionized, thanks to the introduction of Extremely Large Telescopes that rely on primary mirrors measuring 30 meters (or more) in diameter, adaptive optics (AO), coronographs, and advanced spectrometers. This will include the eponymously-named Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). These telescopes will enable astronomers to study exoplanets using the Direct Imaging (DI) method, which will yield valuable data on the composition of their atmospheres.
According to a new study by a team of researchers from Ohio State University (OSU), these telescopes will also allow astronomers to study “ultracool objects,” like very low-mass stars (VLMs), brown dwarfs, and exoplanets. In addition to being able to visualize magnetic starspots and determine the chemical compositions of these objects, ELTs will be able to reveal details about atmospheric dynamics and cloud systems. These types of studies could reveal a wealth of information about some of the least-studied objects in our Universe and significantly aid in the search for life beyond our Solar System.
Continue reading “The Next Generation of Telescopes Will Tell Us About the Weather on Other Worlds”
If we want to know what it’ll look like in about 4.5 billion years when our galaxy merges with Andromeda, we might take a look at ARP 220. ARP 220 is a pair of galaxies that are in the process of merging. The merging galaxies emit brilliant infrared light, and the James Webb Space Telescope captured that light in a vivid portrait.
Continue reading “JWST Sees Merging Galaxies Releasing the Light of a Trillion Suns”
Our galaxy’s largest nearby companion is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere. In recent years, new theoretical research and better observational capabilities have taught astronomers a great deal about our (not-so-little) neighbour. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the LMC is helping shape the Milky Way’s evolution.
Continue reading “The Milky Way has Trapped the Large Magellanic Cloud With its Gravity. What Comes Next?”
Amazing views from Earth and space of this week’s rare hybrid solar eclipse.
This week’s solar eclipse didn’t disappoint, as eclipse chasers flocked to the path Thursday on April 20th, for some amazing views. This was a rare hybrid solar eclipse, with an annular path along one part of the track, and totality along another. Only seven such eclipses occur this century.
Continue reading “Views of This Week’s Amazing Hybrid Solar Eclipse”
In the 1960s, astronomers began noticing a pervasive microwave background visible in all directions. Thereafter known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the existence of this relic radiation confirmed the Big Bang theory, which posits that all matter was condensed onto a single point of infinite density and extreme heat that began expanding ca. 13.8 years ago. By measuring the CMB for redshift and comparing these to local distance measurements (using variable stars and supernovae), astronomers have sought to measure the rate at which the Universe is expanding.
Around the same time, scientists observed that the rotational curves of galaxies were much higher than their visible mass suggested. This meant that either Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity was wrong or the Universe was filled with a mysterious, invisible mass. In a new series of papers, members of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration have used background light from the CMB to create a new map of Dark Matter distribution that covers a quarter of the sky and extends deep into the cosmos. This map confirms General Relativity and its predictions for how mass alters the curvature of spacetime.
Continue reading “The First Light in the Universe Helps Build a Dark Matter Map”
As the European Space Agency’s Juice spacecraft headed out on an eight-year trip to Jupiter’s icy moons, it turned back to snap some selfies with Earth in the background — and those awesome shots are just the start.
The bus-sized probe is due to make four slingshot flybys of Earth and Venus to pick up some gravity-assisted boosts to its destination — and ESA mission managers plan to have the monitoring cameras running during those close encounters.
Continue reading “Juice Looks Back at Earth During Its Space Odyssey to Jupiter’s Moons”