Category: Space

As long as clouds don’t get in the way, the view should be spectacular. NASA Goddard By Dr. Shannon Schmoll / 01.24.2018 Director, Abrams Planetarium Department of Physics and Astronomy Michigan State University During the early hours of Jan. 31, there will be a full moon, a total lunar eclipse, a blue moon and a supermoon[…]

This artist’s concept shows the most distant supermassive black hole ever discovered. It is part of a quasar from just 690 million years after the Big Bang. / Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science 12.06.2017 Scientists have uncovered a rare relic from the early universe: the farthest known supermassive black hole. This matter-eating beast is 800 million[…]

Complex nature. Photo by Alan L/Flickr By Dr. Martin Rees / 12.01.2017 Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics University of Cambridge Albert Einstein said that the ‘most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible’. He was right to be astonished. Human brains evolved to be adaptable, but our underlying neural architecture has barely changed since[…]

Artist’s concept of interstellar asteroid 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) as it passed through the solar system after its discovery in October 2017. The aspect ratio of up to 10:1 is unlike that of any object seen in our own solar system. Credits: European Southern Observatory/M. Kornmesser 11.20.2017 Astronomers recently scrambled to observe an intriguing asteroid that zipped[…]

A group of astronomers have shown that the fastest-moving stars in our galaxy – which are travelling so fast that they can escape the Milky Way – are in fact runaways from a much smaller galaxy in orbit around our own. 07.05.2017 The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used data from the Sloan Digital[…]

Relative positions of distant spacecraft. / NASA, JPL Caltech By Dr. Michael Strauss / 02.22.2017 Professor of Astrophysical Sciences Princeton University As an astrophysicist, I am always struck by the fact that even the wildest science-fiction stories tend to be distinctly human in character. No matter how exotic the locale or how unusual the scientific[…]

‘A movie camera to watch the whole universe’; an artist’s conception of the LSST inside its dome / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Christopher Kochanek / 07.19.2017 Professor of Astronomy Ohio State University For most of human history, the distant ‘celestial sphere’ was regarded as perfect and unchanging. Stars remained in place, planets moved predictably, and[…]

NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has identified 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and in the habitable zone of their star. / NASA, JPL-Caltech 06.19.2017 NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and[…]

This artist’s concept shows planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. It is the hottest gas giant planet discovered so far. / NASA, JPL-Caltech A newly discovered Jupiter-like world is so hot, it’s being vaporized by its own star. With a dayside temperature of more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit (4,600 Kelvin), KELT-9b is a planet[…]

Artist’s conception of two merging black holes, spinning in a nonaligned fashion. LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet) By Dr. Sean McWilliams / 06.01.2017 Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy West Virginia State University For the third time in a year and a half, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory has detected gravitational waves. Hypothesized by[…]

Working with image data from NASA’s Cassini mission, researchers have found evidence that Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have tipped over, reorienting itself so that terrain closer to its original equator was relocated to the poles. This phenomenon is known as true polar wander. / NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell University 05.30.2017 Saturn’s icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus may have[…]