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Poison Gas Hints at Potential for Life on an Ocean Moon of Saturn
A researcher who has studied the icy world said “the prospects for the development of life are getting better and better on Enceladus.” Scientists have detected a poison among the spray of molecules emanating from a small moon of Saturn. That adds to existing intrigue about the possibility of life there. The poison is hydrogen…
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The Weirdos of the Star-Spangled Cosmos and What They Reveal
In “Things That Go Bump in the Universe,” the astronomer C. Renée James writes about what we can learn from the more exotic shapes and sounds in outer space. THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE UNIVERSE: How Astronomers Decode Cosmic Chaos, by C. Renée James There is one particular pulsar, a type of quick-spinning dead…
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Never-before-seen Fast Radio Burst sheds new light on deep space signals
Astronomers are continuing to unravel the mystery of deep space signals after discovering a never-before-seen quirk in a newly-detected Fast Radio Burst (FRB). FRBs are millisecond-long, extremely bright flashes of radio light that generally come from outside our Milky Way galaxy. Most happen only once but some “repeaters” send out follow-up signals, adding to the…
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Astronomers capture a green ghost in our atmosphere
A red sprite appears above a thunderstorm visible from Maunakea in Hawaii. Also present is a blue and white jet, which flows down from the sprite and into the thundercloud. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/A. Smith High up in the atmosphere, near the boundary of space, a dazzling, fleeting flash of red sometimes briefly appears above…
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Space Station to Earth: Houston, We Have Found the Tomato
The NASA astronaut Frank Rubio grew a tomato in space, but then it disappeared. Suspicion trailed Mr. Rubio for months, but he was proved innocent. The NASA astronaut Frank Rubio returned to Earth in September after completing the longest single spaceflight for an American astronaut and had to confront one small, red mark on his…
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Space photo of the week: ‘Magical’ Milky Way cuts through the Valley of the Moon in Chile’s Atacama Desert
What it is: The Milky Way over Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) Where it is: The Atacama Desert, in Chile Why it’s so special: Astronomy has long been conducted mainly from mountaintops and other high-altitude locations, far above Earth’s hot, dense air and far from light pollution. It doesn’t get much higher…
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James Webb telescope finds ‘vanishing’ galaxy from the dawn of the universe
This image of a galaxy from the early universe is hardly what you’d call dazzling. You are looking at a very blurry, highly dust-obscured resident of the cosmos whose name is only a string of numbers and letters. It even sits at a distance so far from Earth that it slips in and out of the watchful…
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Lots of oxygen existed in the early universe, JWST reveals
Cutting edge: NIRSpec being readied for the launch of the JWST. (Courtesy: Astrium/NIRSpec) Using a cutting-edge spectrograph on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have found evidence that interstellar oxygen was far more abundant in many ancient galaxies than previously thought. Led by Kimihiko Nakajima at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the team…
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Astronomers discover galaxies have bipolar gas outflows reaching far into intergalactic space
Gas outflows (red) near spiral galaxies (white). The left image shows the outflow of gas for the group of galaxies we see edge on. It is clear that most of the gas escapes upward and downward into intergalactic space. The right image shows the galaxies we see face on. A ring of gas is visible…
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Intergalactic ‘stream of stars’ 10 times longer than the Milky Way is the 1st of its kind ever spotted
The intergalactic stellar stream (highlighted) was spotted in galaxy cluster 231 million light-years from Earth. (Image credit: William Herschel Telescope/Román et al.) Astronomers have accidentally discovered the first known intergalactic trail of stars. The gigantic “stellar stream,” which is around 10 times longer than the Milky Way, suggests that more of these structures could be…