Space and astronomy news
Way back when the cosmos was only five billion years old, a powerful explosion happened in a group of young galaxies halfway across the Universe. It sent out a blast of radiation from one member of that distant galaxy group.
Continue reading “Hubble Shows That a Fast Radio Burst Came From a Giant Group of Galaxies”
Any astronomical instrument dubbed “Lobster Eyes” is bound to grab attention. It’s actually unlike scientists to give anything creative names, take the big red coloured storm on Jupiter which resembles a spot…aka the Great Red Spot! Lobster Eyes is the name adtoped by the X-ray telescope that just been launched from China and will scan the sky looking for X-rays coming from high-energy transients.
Continue reading “Chinese Rocket Lofts the Einstein Probe and its “Lobster Eyes””
When we look at the Moon, either through a pair of binoculars, a telescope, or past footage from the Apollo missions, we see a landscape that’s riddled with what appear to be massive sinkholes. But these “sinkholes” aren’t just on the Moon, as they are evident on nearly every planetary body throughout the solar system, from planets, to other moons, to asteroids. They are called impact craters and can range in size from cities to small countries.
Continue reading “Impact Craters: Why study them and can they help us find life elsewhere?”
About 16,000 light-years away, a massive star experienced an unusual dimming event. This can happen in binary stars when one star passes in front of the other. It can also be due to intrinsic reasons like innate variability. But this star dimmed by as much as one-third, a huge amount.
What happened?
Continue reading “A Giant Star is Fading Away. But First, it Had an Enormous Eruption”
The most evocative astronomy images take us across space and time to stars and galaxies billions of light-years away. Nestled at the center of this one, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is a collection of three galaxies. They’re not all that close together, although they appear to be in this image. What’s fascinating about this image is that it’s a fine example of an Einstein gravitational ring—and its discovery was enabled by members of the public!
Continue reading “Another Example of a Fantastic Einstein Ring”
How long does planet formation take? Maybe not as long as we thought, according to new research. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) show that planet formation around young stars may begin much earlier than scientists thought.
Continue reading “The Youngest Planetary Disks Ever Seen”
It’s a real shame that spaceflight is seen as routine by the world’s media. In reality, our exploration of the Solar System is still in its infancy, problems are still seen and sadly missions do still fail. We are reminded of this with the recent launch of the Astrobotic Peregrine lander on Sunday. It was launched atop a Vulcan rocket but it soon became apparent that there was a problem with the lander propulsion system. A leak has been discovered and unfortunately there is insufficient fuel to support a soft landing on the Moon.
Continue reading “Astrobotic Confirms it Won’t be Landing on the Moon”
Astronomers have used JWST to find a brown dwarf with polar auroras like the Earth, or Jupiter. This is surprising because the brown dwarf, dubbed W1935, is a free-floating object, meaning it isn’t part of another star system. Therefore, there’s no solar wind available to generate any Northern Lights. Instead, the auroras are seemingly generated from methane emissions in the planet’s atmosphere, interacting with the interstellar plasma. Another theory is that it perhaps has an active but unseen moon contributing to the emissions.
Continue reading “A Solo Brown Dwarf Found With Auroras”
I wasn’t around for the Apollo program that took human beings to the Moon. I would have love to have seen it all unfold though. With NASAs Artemis program the opportunity will soon be with us again to watch humans set foot on another world, just not for the first time. Alas NASA announced on Tuesday that the Moon landings which form part of Artemis 3, have been pushed back one year to 2026.
Continue reading “NASA is Pushing Back its Moon Landings to 2026”
Researchers using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have found three iron rings around a young star about 500 light-years away. The rings indicate that planets are forming. What can these rings tell us about how Earth and the other planets in our Solar System formed?
Continue reading “Three Iron Rings Around A Star Show Where Planets are Forming”