In the center of our galaxy, hundreds of stars closely orbit a supermassive black hole. Most of these stars have large enough orbits that their motion is described by Newtonian gravity and Kepler’s laws of motion. But a few orbits so closely that their orbits can only be accurately described by Einstein’s theory of general […]
Don’t Miss These 7 Spectacular Sights Of The Summer Sky
Some of the natural highlights of our night sky are easy to overlook. Every year, you’ll hear about some of the brightest, major events that occur, including: solar and lunar eclipses, bright, full moons, the presence of any bright comets, the locations of the naked-eye planets in the night sky, and when and where to […]
Seeing baby stars at every stage of their formation
Stars form from the collapse of dense clouds of gas and dust, which makes it very hard for astronomers to watch the process unfold. Recently the ALMA telescope has revealed a treasure trove of embryonic stars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, illuminating how baby stars are born. The Atacama Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Atacama […]
The sky is falling! Here's how to watch tonight's Perseid meteor shower
As the Earth orbits the Sun, every year around this time it plows through the debris left behind by the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. These tiny bits of rock — most no bigger than a grain of sand — slam into our atmosphere and burn up in a second or two a hundred kilometers above our heads. […]
The 5 Possibilities For Life On Mars
For as long as humanity has been watching the skies, we’ve been fascinated with the possibility that other worlds — much like Earth — might contain living organisms. While our visits to the Moon taught us that it’s completely barren and uninhabited, other worlds within our Solar System remain full of potential. Venus might have […]
Lunar Eclipse: A Proxy for Exoplanet Observation
When it comes to detecting life on planets around other stars, my guess is that what will initially appear to be a life signature will quickly become controversial. We might, for example, find ozone in an exoplanet atmosphere with a space telescope like HabEX (Habitable Exoplanet Observatory). That would lead to hyperbolic news stories, to […]
Dwarf planet Ceres has reservoirs of salty water
The dwarf planet Ceres, about 940 kilometers (585 miles) in diameter, is the largest body in the main asteroid belt. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft mapped the planet and found evidence — a low-density region of the crust (blue) — of an underground brine reservoir. A crater named Occator is to the left of the blue area […]
Scientists May Have Just Found The Youngest Neutron Star Ever
33 years ago, a supernova occurred just 168,000 light-years from Earth. This new image of the supernova remnant SN 1987A was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in January 2017 using its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Since its launch in 1990 Hubble has observed the expanding dust cloud of SN 1987A several times […]
Radio astronomers measure star’s wobble, find Saturn-size exoplanet
An artist’s impression of a newly discovered Saturn-class exoplanet orbiting a cool dwarf star. The planet was discovered by measuring slight changes in the star’s position caused by the companion’s gravity. Image: Luis A. Curiel Ramirez After a year and a half making careful observations of a cool dwarf star 35 light years from Earth, […]
Hot 'Blob' Points to a Neutron Star Lurking in Supernova 1987A
On February 24, 1987, an unexpected cosmic explosion rocked the astronomical community. Dubbed Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A), the fiery event — triggered by the implosion of a massive star — was the closest observed supernova to Earth since the invention of the telescope. It didn’t occur in our galaxy, though. SN 1987A self-destructed within the […]