caltech
Newest Planet: Is it Pluto, Eris or Extrasolar?
With astronomers discovering new planets and other celestial objects all the time, you may be wondering what the newest planet…
It Looks Like These Are All the Bright Kuiper Belt Objects We’ll Ever Find
The self-professed “Pluto Killer” is at it again. Dr. Michael Brown is now reminiscing about the good old days when…
2015: NASA’s Year of the Dwarf Planet
Together, the space probes Dawn and New Horizons have been in flight for a collective 17 years. One remained close…
NASA’s RoboSimian And Surrogate Robots
Since they were first announced in 2012, NASA has been a major contender in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). This…
Earth May Have Lost Some Primoridial Atmosphere to Meteors
During the Hadean Eon, some 4.5 billion years ago, the world was a much different place than it is today.…
Old Equations Shed New Light on Quasars
There's nothing more out of this world than quasi-stellar objects or more simply - quasars. These are the most powerful and among…
Nearby Galaxy Holds First Ultraluminous X-Ray Source that is a Pulsar
A research team led by Caltech astronomers of Pasadena California have discovered an ultraluminous X-ray (ULX) source that is pulsating. Their…
Early Supermassive Black Holes First Formed as Twins
It's one of the puzzles of cosmology and stellar evolution: how did supermassive black holes get so... well, supermassive... in the…
Star’s Dying Gasp May Signal Black Hole’s Birth
A distinctive flash of light emanating from a dying star may make it possible for astronomers to watch a black…