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JWST Detects Quartz Crystals in an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
An artist’s impression of the silicate-rich atmosphere of WASP-17b. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and R. Crawford (STScI) Advertisement <div class="article-block article-text" data-behavior="newsletter_promo dfp_article_rendering" data-dfp-adword="Advertisement" data-newsletterpromo_article-text=" Sign up for Scientific American’s free newsletters. ” data-newsletterpromo_article-image=”https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/4641809D-B8F1-41A3-9E5A87C21ADB2FD8_source.png” data-newsletterpromo_article-button-text=”Sign Up” data-newsletterpromo_article-button-link=”https://www.scientificamerican.com/page/newsletter-sign-up/?origincode=2018_sciam_ArticlePromo_NewsletterSignUp” name=”articleBody” itemprop=”articleBody”> Thousand-mile-per-hour winds are blowing a hail of tiny quartz crystals through the silicate-enhanced, scorching hot atmosphere…
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Looking To Outer Space To Find Meaning On Earth
A quest for life in the cosmos has given astronomer and astrobiologist Dr. Aomawa Shields new perspective on a meaningful life on Earth. October 20, 2023 The following is an excerpt from Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe by Aomawa Shields. Disclaimer: When you purchase products through the…
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Stille Named APS Fellow
Dale Stille, an Instructional Resource Specialist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). The APS Fellowship Program recognizes members who have made exceptional contributions in physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education. Each year, no…
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The search for extraterrestrial intelligence gets a new home at Oxford
The University of Oxford in the United Kingdom has been selected as the new international headquarters for the world’s largest SETI project, the Breakthrough Listen initiative. SETI, which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, received a huge boost in 2015 with the launch of Breakthrough Listen. This $100-million-dollar private venture by the Breakthrough Initiatives…
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What astronauts do: Science, spacewalks and chores
Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon. Credit: NASA. The stars, planets, and galaxies that speckle the cosmos are not the only fascinating denizens of the universe. At any given moment, there are also a handful of brave humans who currently call space home: astronauts. These modern-day pioneers do more than just float around in microgravity.…
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Mysterious fast radio burst traveled 8 billion years to reach Earth
(CNN) — Astronomers have detected a mysterious blast of radio waves that have taken 8 billion years to reach Earth. The fast radio burst is one of the most distant and energetic ever observed. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves with unknown origins. The first FRB was discovered in…
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Astronomers detect most distant fast radio burst to date
image: This artist’s impression (not to scale) illustrates the path of the fast radio burst FRB 20220610A, from the distant galaxy where it originated all the way to Earth, in one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms. The source galaxy of FRB 20220610A, pinned down thanks to ESO’s Very Large Telescope, appears to be located…
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The most ancient and distant fast radio burst to date
A global team led by Australian astronomers have discovered a record-breaking fast radio burst (FRB) that offers a way to measure the “missing” matter between galaxies. On 10 June 2022 CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope, on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia, detected the FRB. At about 8 billion years old,…
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Record-breaking radio burst could help us find the universe’s missing matter
An 8 billion-year-old rapid burst of radio waves, stemming from ancient colliding galaxies, could help astronomers solve the mystery of our universe’s missing matter. The record-breaking Fast Radio Burst (FRB), which is the oldest and most distant example of its kind ever spotted, demonstrates that scientists can use these emissions to effectively “weigh” the universe. …
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James Webb Space Telescope spots jet stream on Jupiter stronger than a Category 5 hurricane
Though NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was initially touted as having the power to unveil our universe’s furthest horizons — and it surely has — some of the observatory’s most gorgeous images are actually ones of our very own solar system. With its gold-plated hive of mirrors and backpack of infrared equipment, such as…
