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These Strange Celestial Bodies Are Baffling Astronomers—Because They Really Shouldn’t Exist
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers recently discovered a new type of celestial object in the star-birthing region closest to Earth that could challenge existing theories of how planets and stars are born. The objects found in the Orion Nebula, located around 1,350 light years from Earth and known as Messier 42 (M42),…
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Scientists detect fastest-ever fast radio bursts, lasting just 10 millionths of a second
Astronomers just found the fastest known radio pulses from outside our galaxy hiding in 30 minutes’ worth of radio telescope data. The findings, published Oct. 19 in the journal Nature Astronomy, could help researchers uncover where these mysterious blips come from. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely short, high-energy pulses of electromagnetic radiation that usually…
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Webb telescope spots never-before-seen jet stream in Jupiter’s atmosphere
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — Jupiter was one of the first targets observed by the James Webb Space Telescope when it initially turned its infrared gaze on the universe in July 2022. After capturing stunning images that surpassed the…
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Astrophysicists scan the galaxy for signs of life
<div data-thumb="https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/tmb/2023/astrophysicists-scan-t.jpg" data-src="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2023/astrophysicists-scan-t.jpg" data-sub-html="An Aitoff projection of the sky in Galactic coordinates depicts the distribution of survey pointings, with the Galactic disk shaded in gray. Gaia sources are omitted from the plot due to their extremely high source density. Gray dots represent TESS Targets of Interest (ToIs). Those targets observed during our survey are marked…
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Largest-ever Computer Simulation of the Universe
Using one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, astronomers have carried out the largest ever cosmological simulations. Known as Flamingo, the simulations trace the growth of the large-scale structure of the universe over 13.75 billion years. By comparing the simulations to actual observations, scientists hope to learn about the fundamental properties of the…
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The most expensive materials used in science
Dark-colored regolith from the asteroid Bennu lies scattered around the outside of OSIRIS-REx’s sample collector. Credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold After a journey of seven years and nearly 4 billion miles, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed gently in the Utah desert on the morning of Sept. 24, 2023, with a precious payload. The spacecraft brought…
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Why NASA’s Roman Mission Will Study Milky Way’s Flickering Lights
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide one of the deepest-ever views into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. The mission will monitor hundreds of millions of stars in search of tell-tale flickers that betray the presence of planets, distant stars, small icy objects that haunt the outskirts of our solar system, isolated…
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OUR SPACE: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
#inform-video-player-1 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; } #inform-video-player-2 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; } Space telescopes are big business and big news these days. A quick internet search shows that there have been almost 130 space telescopes out there, many of which are still working and returning lots of science data. Most of…
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See the moon and Saturn take a night swim in Aquarius tonight
The moon and Saturn are set to meet up for a night swim tonight when the two celestial bodies make a close approach to each other in the constellation of Aquarius, the Water Bearer. During the close approach on Tuesday (Oct. 24), the moon will come to within 2 degrees of the south of Saturn.…
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Victoria Grinberg: the astrophysicist sharing her love for science
Victoria Grinberg, who is the first “liaison scientist” at the European Space Agency in the Netherlands, talks to Hamish Johnston about her interest in binary stars, why she wants to make astronomy more sustainable and her love of scientific illustrations Bold vision Victoria Grinberg, who trained as a physicist, is currently an X-ray astronomer at…