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Juno Captures Pictures of Ganymede for the First Time
On July 5, 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrived around Jupiter, becoming the second mission in history to study the gas giant from orbit – the last being the Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. Since then, the spacecraft has gathered data on Jupiter’s atmosphere, composition, gravity field, and magnetic field in the …
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Ancient Meteorites Can be Found Embedded in Rocks, Like Fossils
Comets visit the inner Solar System, and leave without saying goodbye. Maybe they leave a trail of dust behind, and when the Earth passes through it, we get a pretty light show in the night sky, in the form of a meteor shower. Likewise, asteroids frequently go whizzing by, though they don’t leave us with …
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This Is Fascinating. An Image of a Galaxy’s Magnetic Field
There’s always more than one way to look at the world. There’s also more than one way to look at a galaxy. And sometimes combining those ways of looking can result in something truly special. That is what happened recently when a team of astronomers from seven different universities in four different countries used three …
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There are Natural Starshades Out There, Which Would Help Astronomers Image Exoplanets
A new study by an international team of astronomers has shown that eclipsing binary stars could act as a natural "starshade," making it easier to spot orbiting exoplanets.
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Supermassive black holes can cloak themselves in a cocoon of dust, making them invisible even when they should be bright quasars
Quasars are the most powerful sources of light in the universe, but sometimes they’re hard to find. A team of astronomers used the Chandra X-ray Space Telescope to find some diamonds in the rough. When gas finds itself in the center of a galaxy, it must come toe-to-toe with a truly terrible monster: a supermassive …
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China’s Mars Mission Took This Picture of the Earth and Moon
No matter where you are, where you’ve been and where you’re going, it’s always good to see home. And we all love seeing pictures of our home planet, as seen from space. The latest image of the Terran System comes from China’s Mars mission, Tianwen-1, which launched on July 23. It captured an image of …
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Earth Observation Satellites Could be Flown Much Lower than Current Altitudes and Do Better Science
Satellite engineers know what every photographer knows: get close to your subject to get better pictures. Not just visible light pictures, but all across the spectrum. The lower altitude also improves things like radar, lidar, communications, and gps. But when your subject is Earth, and Earth is surrounded by an atmosphere, getting closer is a …
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Perseverance Rover Rumbles Off the Launchpad to Mars
NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is now successfully on its journey to Mars, launching from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:50 am EDT (1150 GMT). Just minutes before the Atlas 5 rocket rumbled off the launchpad, a 2.9 magnitude earthquake rumbled out in California, giving a minor shake to …
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There’s a flash of ultraviolet just as a white dwarf is exploding as a supernova
Astronomers recently spotted a rare type of supernova explosion that was accompanied by a massive flare of ultraviolet radiation. Untangling the mystery of the UV flash could help unravel the mysterious nature of these supernova explosions, and even help us understand the age of the universe. Enjoy Some Ultraviolet It doesn’t have a pretty name, …
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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” IV: What is the Rare Earth Hypothesis?
Looking to answer the question of "where are all the aliens," some scientists have suggested that planets like Earth might actually be very rare.
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