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The Sun: Facts, size, and fate of Earth’s blazing star
A composite image of the Sun. Credit: NASA/Wikimedia Commons. Gazing up at the clear blue sky, our eyes are often drawn to the Sun, that magnificent burning orb that illuminates our days, warms our planet, and supports the growth of our food. But how much do we really know about our closest star? Astronomers have…
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Astronomers say new telescopes should take advantage of “Starship paradigm”
Enlarge / This slide from a presentation by Lee Feinberg, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, shows concepts for a space telescope fitting inside the volumes of a SpaceX Starship rocket and a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket. NASA/Lee Feinberg A consensus among leading American astronomers is that NASA’s next wave of great…
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Ultra-powerful plasma ‘blades’ could slice entire stars in half, new paper suggests
Stars could be sliced in half by “relativistic blades,” or ultra-powerful outflows of plasma shaped by extremely strong magnetic fields, a wild new study suggests. And these star-splitting blades could explain some of the brightest explosions in the universe. The study authors, based at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at New York University,…
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These space-obsessed brothers are bringing a new attraction to South Street. It’s out of this world.
“Hey, you want to see Saturn?” Posted on the corner of Sixth and South Streets on a brisk October night, sidewalk astronomer Brendan Happe greeted onlookers with the question. Some averted their eyes entirely, while others stopped in their tracks with a look of confusion that turned to curiosity within seconds. Minutes later, a line…
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In its first year JWST proves its worth
NASA has a tradition of naming space telescopes after astronomers who lived so long ago that the concept of space telescopes was, at best, on the far fringes of science fiction. The Hubble Space Telescope, for example, commemorates Edwin Hubble, born in 1889—eight years before H.G. Wells even conceived of his classic novel War of…
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Light — and a big lens — could build roads on the Moon
A rendering of what laser-built roads on the moon might look like. Credit: Liquifer Systems Group Those of us who have ever used a magnifying glass to start stuff on fire, rejoice — it ends up we were doing the same kind of science that could build roads, launch pads, and more on the Moon.…
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A simple streetlight hack could protect astronomy from urban light pollution
Light pollution is a growing threat to astronomy, but a new streetlamp technology could restore clear views of the night sky. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) consume only about 10% of the electricity required by traditional incandescent lights and last up to 25 times longer, so it’s no surprise that they have become commonplace over the past…
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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…