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These New Computer Simulations of the Sun are Hypnotic
It’s almost impossible to over-emphasize the primal, raging, natural power of a star. Our Sun may appear benign in simple observations, but with the advanced scientific instruments at our disposal in modern times, we know differently. In observations outside the narrow band of light our eyes can see, the Sun appears as an enraged, infuriated …
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JWST Scans an Ultra-Hot Jupiter’s Atmosphere
When astronomers discovered WASP-18b in 2009, they uncovered one of the most unusual planets ever found. It’s ten times as massive as Jupiter is, it’s tidally locked to its Sun-like star, and it completes an orbit in less than one Earth day, about 23 hours. Now astronomers have pointed the JWST and its powerful NIRSS …
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You Can Detect Tsunamis as They Push the Atmosphere Around
Anyone who’s ever lived along a coastline or been at sea knows the effects of tsunamis. And, they appreciate all the early warning they can get if one’s on the way. Now, NASA’s GNSS Upper Atmospheric Real-time Disaster and Alert Network (GUARDIAN) is using global navigation systems to measure the effect these ocean disturbances have …
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Exactly How Massive is the Milky Way?
What is the mass of the Milky Way? What do you get if you add up all the stars, gas, dust, black holes, planets, and dark matter? It's a tricky problem since we're embedded inside the Milky Way.
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If You’re Going to Visit Venus, Why Not Include an Asteroid Flyby Too?
A recent study submitted to Acta Astronautica examines the prospect of designing a Venus mission flight plan that would involve visiting a nearby asteroid after performing a gravity assist maneuver at Venus but prior to final contact with the planet. The study was conducted by Vladislav Zubko, who is a researcher and PhD Candidate at …
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ESA is Testing How Iron Burns in Weightlessness
What happens when you burn iron in space? The European Space Agency is torching iron powder in microgravity, to find out. They aren’t doing it for the fun of it, but to understand something called “discrete burning.” It turns out that this process might enable more efficient iron-burning furnaces right here on Earth. It could …
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Here's How You Could Get Impossibly Large Galaxies in the Early Universe
A study by an Israeli team of astronomers offers a solution to the "impossibly massive" galaxies Webb observed.
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UFO Panelists Say NASA Needs Better Data — and Help From AI
A panel of independent experts took a first-ever look at what NASA could bring to the study of UFO sightings — now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — and said the space agency will have to up its game. The 16-member panel’s chair, David Spergel, said he and his colleagues were “struck by …
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A New Launch Complex Opens Up in the Ocean
The Spaceport Company successfully tested its prototype mobile sea platform, launching multiple rockets from the Gulf of Mexico
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The Kepler Mission’s Final Three Planets?
NASA’s Kepler spacecraft ended its observations in October 2018 after nine and a half years, a solid six years beyond its planned duration. It discovered 2,711 confirmed exoplanets and another 2,056 exoplanet candidates as of August 2022. Now, astronomers at MIT and the University of Wisconsin uncovered three more exoplanets in the data from Kepler’s …
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