Universe Today
Impatient? A Spacecraft Could Get to Titan in Only 2 Years Using a Direct Fusion Drive
InSight's 'Mole' is Now Completely buried!
Operating a Rover in Real-time From a Distance
Pluto has Snowcapped Mountains, But Why?
Summer is Dust Devil Time on Mars
Elon Musk Shares a View of Starship With Three Raptor Engines Installed
The SN8 Starship prototype just got its three Raptor engines, and is now preparing to test fire them. After that, it's smooth sailing towards the 15 km (50,000 ft) hop test!
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Weekly Space Hangout: October 14, 2020, Drs. Jane Huang & Jonathan Williams, Protoplanetary Disks
This week we are joined by Dr. Jane Huang and Dr. Jonathan Willams from the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA). Dr. Huang, Dr. Williams, and their team recently discovered some surprising information about the size and shape of some protoplanetary disks.
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Astronomers Report They've Detected the Amino Acid Glycine in the Atmosphere of Venus
China's Mars-bound Tianwen-1 Takes a Selfie
Starman Just Made his Closest Approach to Mars
In a interesting bit of SpaceX news, Starman and his cherry Tesla Roadster made their first flyby of Mars, and will be passing by Earth in less than a month!
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This Martian Lava Tube Skylight is 50 Meters Across. The Biggest Lava Tube on Earth is Only 15 Meters Across
The Most Comprehensive 3D Map of Galaxies Has Been Released
Using the largest survey ever conducted, a team of astronomers from the IfA have created the largest 3D catalog of the Universe ever!
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BepiColombo Mercury Mission to Make First Venus Flyby Tonight
The Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft will observe Venus during tonight's pass, on the hunt for phosphine and sulfur-dioxide.
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We're Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars
Do Ripples on the Surface of the Sun tell us that a Flare is Coming?
This is a Landslide... on the Moon
Astronomers Watch a Star Get Spaghettified by a Black Hole
When a black hole consumes a star, it does so by turning it into spaghetti first. Astronomers have seen it happen.
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An Exoplanet So Hot There Are 7 Different Kinds of Gaseous Metals in its Atmosphere
Comet P1 NEOWISE Makes a Brief Late October Appearance
The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) caught another intriguing object on August 2, 2020 as part of its extended sky survey mission, as Comet C/2020 P1 NEOWISE is set to become a fine binocular object in late October and early November.
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How to See What's on the Other Side of a Wormhole Without Actually Traveling Through it
Black Holes Make Complex Gravitational-Wave Chirps as They Merge
When black holes collide, they emit chirps of gravitational waves even after they have merged.
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The Moon is the Perfect Spot for SETI
A recent white paper submitted to the PSA Decadal Survey 2023-2032 recommends that a lunar observatory be built that can search the Universe for signs of intelligent life!
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Want the Fastest Solar Sail? Drop it Into the Sun First
A new study from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy shows how a "Sun Diver," a light sail that dives closer to the Sun, could make these promising spacecraft much faster!
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Radio Astronomers are Worried About Mega-Constellations and the Square Kilometer Array
With all the satellite constellations heading to space in the near future, there are concerns they will interfere with radio telescopes like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
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Just How Bad are Superflares to a Planet's Habitability?
Matter makes up exactly 31.5±1.3% of the Universe
Simulation Helps Explain Saturn's Mysterious Hexagon
An Amazing Sky Mosaic Courtesy of Stellina...and a New Telescope from Vaonis
Check out this stunning new deep-sky panoramic and new light-weight 'smartscope,' courtesy of Vaonis.
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The Solar System has a second plane where objects orbit the Sun
Planets Don't Wait for Their Star to Form First
Weekly Space Hangout: October 7, 2020, Dr. David Warmflash Discusses Mixed-Reality Surgical System
This week we welcome back to the show Dr. David Warmflash. Since he was last with us, David has been named as Co-Principal Investigator and Medical Director for a new NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBRI) Phase I study titled "Mixed-Reality Holographic Training System to Enable High-Value Surgical and Complex Medical Procedures by Astronauts."
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Gravitational-Wave Lensing is Possible, but it's Going to be Incredibly Difficult to Detect
Because gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, they can be lensed just as light waves are. But observing this effect will be difficult.
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Time Flies. NASA Releases a Mosaic of TESS' View of the Northern Sky After Two Years of Operation
Astronomers Will Be Able to Use the World's Biggest Radio Telescope to Search for Signals from Extraterrestrial Civilizations
7% of the Stars in the Milky Way's Center Came From a Single Globular Cluster That Got Too Close and Was Broken Up
The Air Leak on the International Space Station is Worse Than Previously Believed
The crew aboard the ISS have managed to narrow the search for the leak, which NASA and Roscosmos both insist does not pose a danger to the crew or their operations
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Here's a Clever Idea, Looking for the Shadows of Trees On Exoplanets to Detect Multicellular Life
The Carina Nebula. Seen With and Without Adaptive Optics
Lakes On Titan Will Have Layers, Like Lakes On Earth, But for a Completely Different Reason
The Colorful Walls of an Exposed Impact Crater on Mars
Machine Learning Software is Now Doing the Exhausting Task of Counting Craters On Mars
What the Astronauts Saw as They Orbited the Moon During Apollo 17
Those are Exoplanets. You're Looking at Actual Exoplanets 63 Light-Years Away!
By combining two exoplanet detection methods for the first time ever, the GRAVITY collaboration has confirmed the existence of a second planet around Beta Pictoris
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Einstein. Right again
Astronomers can now test the limit of relativity and whether new physics lies beyond Einstein's model.
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Did Pioneer See Phosphine in the Clouds of Venus Decades Ago?
A Supernova Exploded Dangerously Close to Earth 2.5 Million Years Ago
What Decides the Shape of Planetary Nebulae? Whatever's Orbiting a Star When it Dies
Beyond "Fermi's Paradox" XI: What is the Transcension Hypothesis
Could it be that the reason we haven't heard from any aliens is because they transcended and aren't interested in talking anymore?
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A Balloon Mission that Could Try to Confirm Life On Venus
Mars Express Finds Even More Ponds of Water Under the Ground on Mars
A reexamination of data obtained by the Mars Express probe has found more evidence of stable bodies of water beneath the southern polar icecap on Mars.
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