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Civilizations Could Use Gravitational Lenses to Transmit Power From Star to Star
In 1916, famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein put the finishing touches on his Theory of General Relativity, a geometric theory for how gravity alters the curvature of spacetime. The revolutionary theory remains foundational to our models of how the Universe formed and evolved. One of the many things GR predicted was what is known as…
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Franklin Institute has a new take on the final frontier
From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! Derek Pitts couldn’t be happier. The astronomer and spokesperson for the Franklin Institute helped announce its newly expanded and updated outer space exhibition, Wonderous Space. It takes up two floors of the Institute’s…
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James Webb Space Telescope could soon solve mysteries of the Milky Way’s heart
Ever since astronomers first laid their eyes on the sparkling spiral arms of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, they have wondered what processes might drive the evolution of these massive, star-studded structures. Presumably, those same processes are why we see such a stunning diversity of galactic neighborhoods in the observable universe, which contains an…
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SETI Works Best When Telescopes Double-Check Each Other
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has evolved considerably in the past sixty years since the first experiment was conducted. This was Project Ozma, which was conducted in 1960 by Dr. Frank Drake and his colleagues using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia. While the experiment did not reveal any…
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Beyond UFOs: The future of Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena
I got involved with SETI early in my career. I was a junior at UC Santa Cruz and saw an advertisement for the first-ever astrobiology conference, which was an emerging field at the time. On a whim, I decided to cut school and attend. It was there I met other SETI researchers, and I’ve collaborated…
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James Webb Space Telescope reveals distances of nearly 200 deep-space galaxies
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers determine the distance to nearly 200 galaxies and galaxy clusters formed in the universe’s early days. One of the first publicly released images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb), released on July 11, 2022, captured at least 7,000 galaxies in a sparkling deep field…
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The Sky This Week from November 3 to 10: See Jupiter at its best
This stunning Hubble portrait of Jupiter was taken when the planet was near opposition in 2019. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) Friday, November 3Jupiter reaches opposition at 1 A.M. this morning, putting its best and brightest face forward for observing. Rising roughly as the…
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The Magellanic Clouds must be renamed, astronomers say
In September, astronomer Mia de los Reyes published an op-ed in the journal APS Physics, representing a coalition of astronomers calling for the renaming of two iconic, deeply studied and shining irregular galaxies near the Milky Way. One of these star-studded realms is named the Large Magellanic Cloud and the other, for reasons you’d probably…
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Space Domain Awareness project utilises radio astronomy technology and techniques to support defence goals
Background Researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR-Curtin) translated radio astronomy capability to design and develop a flexible, deployable and covert sensor system with the potential to operate as an inexpensive, highly configurable and covert passive radar. Space-based systems play a vital role in Defence operations — from providing valuable information, to…
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SpaceRake wins $1.8 million in SDA funding for optical communications terminals
SAN FRANCISCO – The Space Development Agency awarded SpaceRake, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup, $1.8 million to develop miniature laser communications terminals. It was the first government contract for SpaceRake, a firm founded in 2021 by Kerri Cahoy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Space Telecommunications, Astronomy and Radiation Laboratory director with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering,…