Paul M. Sutter, Author at Universe Today

July 9, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

New Zealand just got its first International Dark Sky Park

A Perseid meteor streaks across the northeastern sky two Augusts ago. This year's shower will peak on the night of August 12-13 with up to 100 meteors per hour visible from a dark sky. Credit: Bob King

As light pollution around the world increases, we are losing our access to the night sky. Thankfully, dark sky preserves and parks do exactly what their names suggest – preserve the night sky as our ancestors knew it. And recently, the Wai-iti Recreational Reserve and Tunnicliff Forest has been accredited, offering stargazers in New Zealand unprecedented views of the heavens above.

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Finally! We’ve got a comet that’s visible to the unaided eye. Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE

Comet NEOWISE as seen from the International Space Station in a photograph shared by Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner on July 4, 2020. (Image credit: Ivan Vagner/Roscosmos/NASA)

Look up! A rare naked-eye comet, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), is now visible to the unaided eye. But act fast – this celestial treat won’t last long.

June 30, 2020June 29, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

It might just be possible to see a light flash too when black holes merge

Artist's concept of a supermassive black hole and its surrounding disk of gas. Embedded within this disk are two smaller black holes orbiting one another. Image credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

Black hole merger events are some of the most energetic, fearsomely energetic events in all the cosmos. When black holes merge, they’re entirely invisible, the only evidence of the cataclysm some faint whisper of gravitational waves. Until now.

June 29, 2020June 29, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

A brand new magnetar found, it’s only 240 years old

A massive flare ejected from a magnetar.

Magnetars are some of the most ridiculous objects in the universe. Composed of the densest material possible spinning faster than your kitchen blender, they generate the absolute most powerful magnetic fields the cosmos has ever seen – and astronomers have recently spotted a newborn.

June 23, 2020June 22, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

There’s no evidence that dark matter interacts with any other force but gravity

HD+ molecular ions (yellow and red pairs of dots: proton and deuteron) suspended in an ultra-high vacuum between atomic ions (blue dots). Credit: HHU / Alighanbari, Hansen, Schiller

Most of the universe is made of one of two kinds of mysterious substances, called dark matter and dark energy. From all the evidence, these two cosmic components only interact with “normal” matter through the gravitational force. And a recent nuclear experiment reveals no presence of any dark contamination in the bonds between atomic nuclei to a level twenty times better than previously recorded.

June 22, 2020June 22, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Antares is a supergiant star that would fill the Solar System beyond Mars, but its atmosphere is 12 times bigger than that

This artist’s impression shows the red supergiant star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, an international team of astronomers have constructed the most detailed image ever of this, or any star other than the Sun. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Antares, the angry red eye of the constellation Taurus the bull, is a red supergiant star near the end of its life. And astronomers with the VLA and ALMA have realized that it’s much, much bigger than we ever imagined.

June 16, 2020June 15, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Spacecraft was able to measure how long neutrons last before they decay

Artist's concept of the MESSENGER spacecraft on approach to Mercury. Credit: NASA/JPL

Using NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft’s close encounters with Venus and Mercury, researchers were able to measure the lifetime of neutrons, an important prediction of the Standard Model of particle physics.

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Scientists are much better at predicting when the Sun is going to become more active

A massive prominence erupts from the surface of the sun. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The sun constantly cycles between periods of activity and periods of inactivity, and a new technique allows scientists to better predict when things will start getting interesting.

June 8, 2020June 8, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

There are powerful magnetic fields at the core of the Milky Way, driven by the supermassive black hole

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this stunning infrared image of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, where the black hole Sagitarrius A resides. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The center of the Milky Way is home to a giant black hole, but new research suggests that it isn’t the only big player in the downtown core of our galaxy – massive magnetic fields also shape and drive the flows of gas there.

June 8, 2020June 8, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

The Milky Way is surrounded by a huge hot halo of gas

Artist's impression of the Milky Way Galaxy. Credit: ESO

Our Milky Way galaxy isn’t just a disk of stars and nebulae – it’s surrounded by a cloud of hot, thin plasma. And recently, researchers at The Ohio State University confirmed that the plasma surrounding our galaxy is much, much hotter than we previously thought.