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Some 450 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, a new planet is being born and astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile were there to capture the moment. It’s the most detailed picture documenting a planetary-forming system. The cutest planetary baby picture “This is truly one of the most remarkable images ever seen at these […]
A mysterious cosmic object thought to be an immense cloud of gas and dust left scientists scratching their heads after it wasn’t consumed by the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of our galaxy. After it passed a critical point in its orbit around the black hole – where a gas cloud would […]
Intricate polygons on Mars could be a clear indication of a wet past for the Red Planet. Most crater floor polygons have diameters ranging from 15 to 350 m, and it’s still not clear how and why they appeared – though one theory seems to be gaining ground: the idea of former lake beds. Polygons […]
A newly published study has revealed that dark matter is being swallowed up by dark energy, offering valuable data not only about the nature and structure of these mysterious entities, but also about the future of the Universe. Dark Matter and Dark Energy In case you’re wondering, dark matter and dark energy are not Star Trek […]
A group from the Laboratory of Astrophysics of Bordeaux, France, and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) has made a most exciting discovery. The astronomers found that an odd binary system – a solar system comprised of two stars – actually behaves like a double star, with two disks of matter encircling the system in a […]
Here’s something you don’t see everyday – for the first time, astronomers witnessed how a nova is formed right from the onset, capturing and detailing its expansion. The white dwarf turned nova is located some 14,800 light-years away and its study is set to reveal many things about how novas form. The star is dead, long […]
Ever wondered how a comet smells? Well even if you could, you might wish you hadn’t: rotten eggs, horse pee, alcohol and bitter almonds are just a couple of the fragrances you could sniff. A smelly comet These volatile compounds were detected by a mass spectrometer aboard the Rosetta probe which is currently studying the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. […]
After exactly 674 days in orbit, the Air Force’s top secret spaceplane landed in California on Friday. There’s very little anyone knows about the plane, apart from its name – X-37B – and the fact that it can fly in orbit unmanned. The two main assumptions are that it’s either a space plane or a bomber. Maybe […]
Col. Chris Hadfield is not your typical astronaut (as far as astronauts can be seen as typical). The first Canadian to walk in outer space, Hadfield caused a sensation on social media channels on various occasions, be it after recording a song while surfing gravity in the ISS or when he showed us how to brush your teeth in micro […]
With a simple phone app you can donate your idle phone time to science; and if researchers decide to use this data in a paper, you’ll also be credited as an author. The app is called Cosmic Rays Found in Smartphones, or CRAYFIS – and all you have to do is download it, it takes care of […]
The UK has officially opened its first space weather forecasting program this week. Space weather is a term referring to environmental changes in the solar system, especially those concerning near-Earth space. Magnetic fields, radiation, particles and matter which have been ejected from the Sun interact with and can affect the Earth’s magnetosphere to produce a […]
After years of planning and engineering schemes, the construction of the $1.4 billion telescope in Hawaii has finally begun. The unimaginatively named Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will provide astronomers with unparalleled power to observe the stars – it will have a resolution 10 times better than Hubble. The telescope is designed for observations from near-ultraviolet to […]
We live in a solar system filled with water. Not only does liquid water cover 72% of our planet Earth, we have also found ice water in asteroids and comets, on the Moon, on Mars, and even in the shadows of craters on Mercury; while Europa and other moons of Jupiter and Saturn almost certainly […]
Scientists have discovered an almost rectangular feature consisting of ancient magma. The features are similar to rifts here on Earth, a linear zone where the Earth’s crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart. However, since the Moon doesn’t have any plate tectonics to cause rifts, the origin of this magma is still questionable. Magma on the […]
We were telling you a while ago how India launched a probe towards Mars, and how it was successful in reaching the Red Planet’s orbit – a magnificent achievement for any country, let alone India, which is still a developing country. To make their success even more remarkable, they are the first country ever to […]
Astronomers have discovered water vapor in the atmosphere of a new exoplanet - a planet from outside our solar system - roughly the size of Neptune, orbiting a star 124 light-years away. This is the first time water vapor has been found on an alien planet smaller than Jupiter. The discovery is set to improve scientists' understanding of how planet forms and which planets may be best suited to support alien life.
We were telling you yesterday about India’s Mangalyaan shuttle, which was set to enter Martian orbit. Here’s the update: everything went fine, Mangalyaan has entered the red planet’s orbit in a historic moment for Indian science. “History has been created today”, said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We have achieved the near impossible. I congratulate all ISRO scientists […]
Every year the Royal Observatory Greenwich, in partnership with BBC Sky at Night Magazine and Flickr, invites astrophotographers from all over the world to share their best work that captures the contest’s values: spectacular beauty of the night sky and the natural wonders of our universe. Below, you can find all the winning entries for […]
India's Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM, for short, is gearing up to enter Mars' orbit this Wednesday, after the dormant main engine on the spacecraft was test-fired flawlessly on Monday. If the maneuver proves successful, then India will join an exclusive list of countries who have deployed Mars explorers, like the US, Russia, Japan and Europe.
Ever in expansion, the universe is always acting on matter in an endless tug of transformations. Colliding matter is a natural part of the universe, but when our own Milky Way is at stake, things get personal. Scientists have known for a long time that our very own galaxy, the Milky Way, is destined to collide […]
Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon is the only body in the Solar System found to have plate tectonics (besides Earth). A new study has found several defining features, including plate subduction, broken linear features and offset likely caused by strike slip faults. An introduction to plate tectonics Plate tectonics is one of the newest big theories […]
NASA astronauts will once again travel from the Earth to the International Space Station – under groundbreaking contracts announced today. The space agency announced that Boeing and SpaceX were selected to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station using their CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2017, finally ending their dependence on Russia. “From day […]
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about the Curiosity rover, but that doesn’t mean that it stopped studying the Red Planet. Now, NASA’s rover has reached one of its main destinations: Mars’ Mount Sharp, a Mount-Rainier-size mountain at the center of the vast Gale Crater and the rover mission’s long-term prime destination. “Curiosity now will […]
Our sun is but a tiny speck of light among billions, part of the spiral galaxy we familiarly call the Milky Way. That in itself makes us puny humans feel extremely humble, but things get really out of proportion when you zoom out. Galaxies on their own turn congregate in the hundreds or even thousands, […]
Pollution! While industrial pollution threatens the climate on our home planet Earth, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have come up with a way to put industrial pollution to good use. In a recent paper, Henry Lin, Gonzalo Gonzalez Abad, and Avi Loeb suggest that we should start looking for pollution on other […]
Russian researchers who were conducting experiments on the surface of the ISS were absolutely shocked when they found sea plankton, just outside of the space station. Other reports mention that they found them while they were polishing some parts of the ISS, but that’s not really important here: they found real, living, sea creatures in space. Samples […]
Ten years ago, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta probe tasked to orbit a comet for the very first time and study it up close with unprecedented detail. Six billion miles later, the probe reached its target, the four-kilometer wide 67P comet, and has beamed back some of the most breathtaking images of a […]
New research has shown that a big asteroid is well on its way to hitting Earth in 2880 - and by that I mean it has a 1 in 300 chance of actually hitting our planet, but it's still the likeliest celestial body to hit the Earth in the foreseeable future.
A comparison between the Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity and Curiosity - how big the rovers are, how much their mission lasted (and still lasts), and what were the scientific outcomes.
Researchers believe they have found seven dust specs from outside the solar system. This is the first time we have the chance to directly analyze interstellar matter. The material was probably ejected from a supernova.
At this very moment, the International Space Station has all its docking ports fully booked, as five manned and cargo spacecraft have occupied all available slots. Most expensive parking ticket ever The spacecrafts in question are: Soyuz TMA-12M, Soyuz TMA-13M, Cygnus 2, Progress 56, and ATV-5. The Soyuz crafts are tasked with ferrying the crew of Expedition 39/40 […]
Scientists have indirectly demonstrated the existence of a hot layer surrounding the Moon's core, through seismic and deformation studies. This layer is created by the gravity exerted by the Earth on the Moon and can provide valuable information regarding the evolution of the Earth-Moon system.
This magnificent painting by Steve Gildea combines the planets of our solar system in one beautiful planetary mosaic. It’s a celebration of the geological diversity our solar system possess, illustrating each planet’s surface in the order they orbit the sun, starting from the battered Mercury to lonely Pluto. Speaking of which, Pluto is of course […]
Designs for a device called a “microwave thruster” were proposed in 2006. While the device was physically sound and followed the principles of relativity, it has been dismissed by researchers who claimed that such a functioning device would defy the law of conservation of momentum. A team from NASA set out to trial the device and see […]
Gaia is an unmanned space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) which aims to catalog approximately 1 billion astronomical objects (mostly stars), about 1% of the Milky Way population. Gaia will provide a trove of valuable and spectacular data, including a precise three-dimensional map of astronomical objects throughout the Milky Way and map their […]
The geysers on the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus have been counted and mapped, strengthening theories that Enceladus is one of the best extraterrestrial places in our solar system to look for life. Earth is not the only place in our solar system which holds water. For example, Enceladus also has liquid oceans – albeit […]
Over the past six months, the Earth’s magnetic field – the bubble that protects our planet from incoming radiation and solar winds – has weakened by a factor of ten than what’s been registered in previous years. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), this discrepancy might indicate that the magnetic field is about to flip. […]
The Earth contains a lot of iron, but it is not alone in the solar system in that aspect. Venus, Mars, the Moon and asteroids such as Vesta all have iron in their structure, but Mercury is the champion in that aspect: about 70 percent of its mass is iron! Now, researchers believe they have […]
A newfound alien planet located “just” 16 light years away from Earth might be able to support life, a new study has shown. To get some perspective, the Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light-years across. The closest planet to our solar system is Proxima Centauri – 4.2 light-years away. A recent study concluded that there are […]
We’ve mentioned on numerous occasions the growing problem of space debris and voiced our concerns that, if left unchecked, the thousands of metal junk fragments currently out there could seriously affect space missions and even threaten lives. In Earth’s orbit, even a tiny metal fragment could potentially wreak havoc upon impact with a spacecraft or satellite because of […]
Two decades ago, astronomers started to find evidence that almost all galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center. However, the discovery of a trio of black holes circling the center of a distant galaxy, reported by astronomers on Wednesday indicates that duos and trios of black holes are much more common than previously thought. […]
A while ago, we were telling you about the discovery of a huge exoplanet – a gas giant, found just 155 light years away from Earth. The head researcher behind that study was Marie-Eve Naud. Her main research field is the detection and characterization of exoplanets, with a focus on astrobiology. She was kind enough to talk […]
Einstein’s theories suggest that light can not travel faster than c, a constant equal to the speed of light in a vacuum, which is 299,792,458 metres per second (by definition) or about 186,282.4 miles per second. All of our standing physical models are based on this assumption, and so far this idea has yet to […]
Astronomers have discovered a previously unspotted geological feature on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Pictures taken by the Cassini probe revealed a transient geological feature – a “magic island”. Now you see it, now you don’t The bright, mysterious object was seen in Ligeia Mare, the second-largest sea on Saturn’s moon Titan. But Cassini took pictures of […]
We were telling you a while ago about NASA growing vegetables in space, on the International Space Station. So far, the project has been successful, and everything has worked out fine – so it’s harvest time! In this picture we see American astronaut, Steve Swanson, harvesting lettuce grown on board the ISS. “Expedition 40 commander, harvests […]
Intense light from a huge explosion (a gamma ray burst) that took place shortly after the birth of the Universe (12 billion years ago) has reached Earth, and was observed by researchers. Gamma Ray bursts are the strongest explosions since the Big Bang – in just 10 seconds, they release more energy than our sun in […]
Physicist Kip Thorne and astronomer Anna Zytkow proposed a new theoretical class of stars back in 1975, but it was only very recently that such an example of hybrid star was identified in the universe. The Thorne-Zytkow Objects (TZOs) are a combination between red supergiant and neutron stars, superficially looking like normal red supergiants, for […]
An international team of astronomers reported the discovery of two new planets orbiting a very old and nearby star to the Sun named Kapteyn’s star; one of the planets, Kapteyn b, is potentially habitable – it has the right size, and is at the right distance from its start to host liquid water. What makes it even […]
A rocky world weighing 17 more than the Earth was discovered, and because it’s not only way much bigger than the previously discovered ‘super-Earths’, but also all solids, the scientists called it ‘mega-Earth’. Until this recent discovery, scientists believed that a world of such dimensions would be physically impossible to form, because of the thickness […]
What would you need to survive on the Moon? Air, water, some food, and if you ask the average American – wi-fi. We still have to wait for the air, water and food, but according to researchers from NASA and MIT, wi-fi on the Moon is quite feasible. They’ve even made a demonstration, downloading information from […]
