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Why a solar system like ours might be more common than we think
Gas giants like Jupiter could be more common than previously thought. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley). When planetary scientists look to other stars for planets beyond Earth, they don’t often turn up much that resembles our solar system. Whether it’s because of star size,…
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Seeing the sound of a black hole: the story of Black Echo
What advice would you give to someone wanting to create astronomy art? The creative process is not trial and error, it’s just trial and reveal. If you don’t try you can guarantee that you’ll get nothing – the process of experimentation is often the path to new ideas. It reveals things. If you’re squirting ink into…
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AI just spotted its 1st supernova. Could it replace human explosion hunters?
Move over, human astronomers! Artificial intelligence (AI) could soon be doing your supernova hunting for you. A new, fully automated machine-learning algorithm has successfully detected, identified and classified its first supernova — the first time this has been achieved with AI. The program, called Bright Transient Survey Bot (BTSbot), could vastly accelerate the process of…
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What the ‘ring of fire’ eclipse looked like from the home of ancient solar astronomy
CHACO CANYON, New Mexico — Solar eclipses occur in patterns that far outlast a single human life, but just occasionally it’s possible to see them echo through deep time. Such a rare occasion was possible on Saturday, Oct. 14 at precisely 10:34 a.m. MDT when a “ring of fire” appeared in the sky for 4…
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Comets explained: An essential guide to the snow cones of space
Comet Nishimura has quickly brightened and developed a long, beautiful tail. This image was taken September 6 from Martinsberg, Lower Austria, and shows the comet’s reddish sodium tail (a vertical red line near the lower left corner of the image). Credit: Gerald Rhemann (Editor’s note: This article was first published on The Conversation.) When you…
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Aerocapture: Using a planet’s atmosphere to slow down a spacecraft
This diagram outlines the basic stages of the aerocapture technique. Credit: Athulpg007/Wikimedia Commons Space agencies have performed a dazzling aerial feat at both Venus and Mars: they’ve dipped an incoming spacecraft into the planets’ atmospheres to slow it down without wasting precious rocket fuel. But will this audacious aerocapture technique also work in the outer…
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‘Air showers’ could help reveal cosmic rays’ mysterious source
Astronomers have a new way to study energetic particles that constantly bombard Earth from space, called cosmic rays. The new method proposes the detailed analysis of showers of secondary particles created when cosmic rays belt Earth’s atmosphere, as a lens to better understand them. Cosmic rays are difficult to track back to a source because…
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The Best Space Gifts for Astronomy Lovers and Stargazers | Holiday Gift Guide 2023
The holiday season is the best time to deepen your love of the cosmos — or give someone you know a great space-themed gift. But finding the perfect astronomy present is hard. That’s why My Science Shop, the online store of Astronomy magazine, curated this list of top-rated astronomy and space-themed gifts for the 2023 Christmas and holiday…
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Study: Satellite traffic jam calls for ‘urgent’ changes
Satellite trails near Earth, taken from data collected for six hours. Dominique Dierick (Flickr). As SpaceX, Amazon, and others vie for supremacy in the race to establish constellations of communications satellites, the superhighway used by low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites is becoming dangerously cluttered. To avert the equivalent of a multi-car pileup, we need better traffic…
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NASA’s Psyche metal asteroid mission will have a big impact on astronomy. Here’s how
Five scientists gathered at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday (Oct. 10) to lay out the blueprints of an exhilarating space mission set to launch in just a couple of days. It’s called Psyche. Named for its target, this endeavor will send a spacecraft on an impressive 2.2-billion-mile (3.5-billion-km) journey toward an asteroid dubbed 16…