Space and astronomy news
We have built telescopes in our backyards, and high upon remote mountains, and even launched telescopes into space. With each advancement in our technology, we have made amazing and surprising new discoveries about the Universe. So what should our next advance in observatories be? Based on a new paper on the arXiv, a good choice would be the lunar surface.
Continue reading “Should the Next Big Observatories Be Built on the Moon?”
Thanks to the laws of physics, there are two basic rules about telescopes. The first is that the bigger your primary lens or mirror, the higher the resolution of your telescope. The second is that lenses and mirrors have to be curved to focus light into an image. So, if you want a space telescope sensitive enough to see the atmospheres of distant exoplanets, Your telescope is going to need a large curved mirror or lens. But neither of these things is technically true, as a newly proposed telescope design demonstrates.
Continue reading “Thin Flat Lenses Could Unleash a Revolution in Space Telescopes”
The Gemini South telescope has captured a new image of the glowing nebula IC 2220. Nicknamed the Toby Jug Nebula, this object got its name because it looks like an old English jug. But no fun drinking games are happening here.
Continue reading “A Dying Red Giant Star has Thrown Out Giant Symmetrical Loops of Gas and Dust”
The European Southern Observatory continues to build the largest telescope in the world, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Construction of the telescope began in 2014 with flattening the top of a mountain named Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
ESO just announced that progress on construction has crossed the 50% mark. The remaining work should take another five years. When it finally comes online in 2028, the telescope will have a 39-meter (128 ft) primary mirror of 798 hexagonal segments, making it the largest telescope in the world for visible and infrared light. The new telescope should help to answer some of the outstanding questions about our Universe, such as how the first stars and galaxies formed, and perhaps even be able to take direct images of extrasolar planets.
Continue reading “The Biggest Telescope in the World is Half Built”
Two of the most important telescopes being constructed at the moment are Vera C. Rubin and Nancy Grace Roman. Each has the capability of transforming our understanding of the universe, but as a recent paper on the arxiv shows, they will be even more transformative when they work together.
Continue reading “Nancy Grace Roman and Vera Rubin Will be the Perfect Astronomical Partnership”
The 8-meter Gemini North telescope has been brought back online after seven months of repairs and refurbishment of its primary mirror. The timing couldn’t have been better, as the telescope was able to capture the brand-new supernova in the famous Pinwheel Galaxy. The bright supernova was first discovered on May 19th, and telescopes worldwide have been revealing its secrets.
Continue reading “Gemini North Returns to Service Just in Time to See a New Supernova”
Uranus takes 84 years to orbit the Sun, and so that last time that planet’s north polar region was pointed at Earth, radio telescope technology was in its infancy.
But now, scientists have been using radio telescopes like the Very Large Array (VLA) the past few years as Uranus has slowly revealing more and more of its north pole. VLA microwave observations from 2021 and 2022 show a giant cyclone swirling around this region, with a bright, compact spot centered at Uranus’ pole. Data also reveals patterns in temperature, zonal wind speed and trace gas variations consistent with a polar cyclone.
Continue reading “There's a Polar Cyclone on Uranus' North Pole”
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”
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most powerful and sophisticated observatory ever built. It is also the most expensive, owing to the complexity of its design and the rigorous testing this entailed. To ensure the telescope could fit into its payload fairing, NASA engineers designed the JWST to fold up (origami-style) and unfold once it reached space. It is little wonder why astronomers and astrophysicists hope to develop flexible, lightweight materials that can maintain the perfect shape and be folded up to fit compactly inside a launch vehicle.
This has the potential to reduce the size and mass of space telescopes and the complexity of their designs, thus reducing launch costs. During the COVID pandemic, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) developed a new method for producing and shaping high-quality parabolic membrane mirrors. So far, the MPE team has fabricated prototypes up to 30 cm (12 inches) in diameter that are much thinner and more flexible than conventional mirrors. In the long term, this method could drastically reduce the cost of manufacturing and deploying space telescopes.
Continue reading “A New Membrane Could Lead to Space Telescopes with Flexible Mirrors!”
The picture of the Moon in the banner might not look all that spectacular, but it is absolutely astounding from a technical perspective. What makes it so unique is that it was taken via a telescope using a completely flat lens. This type of lens, called a metalens, has been around for a while, but a team of researchers from Pennsylvania State University (PSU) recently made the largest one ever. At eight cm in diameter, it was large enough to use in an actual telescope – and produce the above picture of the Moon, however, blurred it might be.
Continue reading “Researchers Build a Telescope with a Flat Lens”