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Scientists want to use the sun’s gravity to communicate between stars
Gravitational lensing occurs when things with mass create ripples and dents in the fabric of spacetime, and light has to follow along those lines, which sometimes create a magnifying glass effect. This both sounds and looks like something wild from science fiction, but it’s actually a very important tool in astronomy. The James Webb Space…
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40 Years Ago: STS-9, the First Spacelab Science Mission
On Nov. 28, 1983, space shuttle Columbia took to the skies for its sixth trip into space on the first dedicated science mission using the Spacelab module provided by the European Space Agency (ESA). The longest shuttle mission at the time also included many other firsts. Aboard Columbia to conduct dozens of science experiments, the…
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Gemini South Telescope in Chile to run solely on clean energy by 2027
NOIRLab, a federally-funded U.S. facility that operates a handful of large ground-based observatories in Arizona, Chile and Hawaii, made a major announcement on Monday (Nov. 27) regarding its clean energy goals. According to officials with the organization, it is on track to halve all planet-warming carbon emissions associated with its operations by the end of…
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Gemini South Telescope in Chile to run solely on clean energy by 2027
NOIRLab, a federally-funded U.S. facility that operates a handful of large ground-based observatories in Arizona, Chile and Hawaii, made a major announcement on Monday (Nov. 27) regarding its clean energy goals. According to officials with the organization, it is on track to halve all planet-warming carbon emissions associated with its operations by the end of…
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How do living things use meaningful information to survive?
November 28, 2023 SMART PHONES, SMART BIRDS: Birds gather, process, and communicate information about their environment. Smartphones do, too. The difference comes down to how the informational architectures in living things are intimately tied to self-preservation and reproduction. A team of physicists uses the theory of semantic information to address the questions, how much viability…
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How do living things use meaningful information to survive?
November 28, 2023 SMART PHONES, SMART BIRDS: Birds gather, process, and communicate information about their environment. Smartphones do, too. The difference comes down to how the informational architectures in living things are intimately tied to self-preservation and reproduction. A team of physicists uses the theory of semantic information to address the questions, how much viability…
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Solar activity likely to peak next year, new study suggests
Researchers at the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India at IISER Kolkata have discovered a new relationship between the Sun’s magnetic field and its sunspot cycle, that can help predict when the peak in solar activity will occur. Their work indicates that the maximum intensity of solar cycle 25, the ongoing sunspot cycle, is…
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Solar activity likely to peak next year, new study suggests
Researchers at the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India at IISER Kolkata have discovered a new relationship between the Sun’s magnetic field and its sunspot cycle, that can help predict when the peak in solar activity will occur. Their work indicates that the maximum intensity of solar cycle 25, the ongoing sunspot cycle, is…
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Data science helps cross-check space discoveries ‘across time and telescopes’
We are living in the age of information, and this sentiment also pertains to astronomy. Quite a few telescopes are trained to scan large sections of our sky, cataloging and imaging millions, even billions, of objects. Having this much information can do wonders for science, but it can also make things extremely difficult. With so…
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Dr. Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski Will Change How You Think About Space
The universe is a hologram. At least, that’s one of the central ideas in celestial holography, which is what Dr. Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski works on. She’s the founder and principal investigator of the Celestial Holography Initiative at the Perimeter Institute. The Universe Is a What? Yes, you read that right: The universe might indeed be…