Universe Today (Page 145)

You're Looking at Spiral Galaxies, Already Forming When the Universe was Just a Baby

By Matthew Williams - April 29, 2020 07:14 PM UTC | Extragalactic

The ALPINE survey recently observed 118 galaxies dated to just 1-1.5 billion years ago, and found that the early galaxies were surprisingly developed.

Terrible Luck. The Only Person Ever Killed by a Meteorite - Back in 1888

By Nancy Atkinson - April 29, 2020 05:21 PM UTC | Planetary Science

China's First Mars Lander is Going to be Called "Tianwen"

By Evan Gough - April 29, 2020 05:04 PM UTC | Missions

How Do You Weigh The Universe?

By Brian Koberlein - April 29, 2020 04:15 PM UTC | Cosmology

If we can find the weight of everything in the universe, we can better understand how the universe came to be.

There Might Be Dust Devils On Titan Too

By Evan Gough - April 29, 2020 03:01 PM UTC | Planetary Science

How Will Covid-19 affect the Future of Science?

By Paul Sutter - April 29, 2020 10:57 AM UTC | Site News

Can wormholes act like time machines?

By Paul Sutter - April 29, 2020 10:37 AM UTC | Physics

Fomalhaut's Planet Has Gone Missing, But it Might Have Been Something Even More Interesting

By Matthew Williams - April 28, 2020 08:08 PM UTC | Exoplanets

Ongoing observations of the Fomalhaut system using Hubble data has revealed that the mysterious "disappearing" exoplanet may not have been an exoplanet at all.

Weekly Space Hangout: April 29, 2020 - Alcohol in Space with Chris Carberry

By susie - April 28, 2020 01:49 AM UTC | Site News

Now This is Progress! Starship Passes its Cryogenic Test and Doesn't Explode

By Matthew Williams - April 27, 2020 06:21 PM UTC | Space Exploration

The fourth Starship prototype (SN4) achieved a crucial milestone this weekend by passing the cryogenic load test - the same one that caused its three predecessors to explode.

Carnival of Space #660-661

By susie - April 27, 2020 05:16 PM UTC | Site News

OSIRIS-REx Descended Down to Just 75 Meters Above the Surface of Bennu in a Recent Test

By Evan Gough - April 27, 2020 04:18 PM UTC | Missions

Watch Asteroid 1998 OR2 Zip Past Earth This Week

By David Dickinson - April 27, 2020 01:52 PM UTC | Planetary Science

A fascinating asteroid nammed 1998 OR2 pays our neck of the inner solar system a visit early Wednesday morning, and if skies are clear, you might just get a chance to watch it slide by.

A Star is Orbiting the Milky Way's Black Hole and Moving Exactly How Einstein Predicted it Should

By Matthew Williams - April 25, 2020 10:17 PM UTC | Black Holes

After almost 30 years of observing a star that orbits the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, scientists have confirmed yet again that Einstein was right!

This is the Final Picture NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

By Matthew Williams - April 25, 2020 05:24 PM UTC | Telescopes

NASA has just released a mosaic of the California Nebula, which was created from the final images snapped by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Astronomers Find a Six-Planet System Which Orbit in Lockstep With Each Other

By Matthew Williams - April 24, 2020 07:55 PM UTC | Exoplanets

Astronomers have found a star system with six exoplanets that orbit with an almost perfect 3:2 resonance.

Astronomers Detected a Black Hole Merger With Very Different Mass Objects

By Matthew Williams - April 22, 2020 06:09 PM UTC | Black Holes

In another first, the latest gravitational wave event to be detected came from the merger of two black holes of vastly different mass.

Super-Supernova Released Ten Times More Energy than a Regular Supernova

By Evan Gough - April 22, 2020 06:02 PM UTC | Stars

BepiColombo captured images of Earth during its recent flyby

By Paul Sutter - April 22, 2020 02:53 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Crew Dragon Will Be Launching on May 27th

By Nancy Atkinson - April 22, 2020 02:42 PM UTC | Missions

Weekly Space Hangout: April 22, 2020 - Dr. Fred Watson talks Exploding Stars and Invisible Planets

By susie - April 22, 2020 01:31 PM UTC | Site News

Hubble Sees a Galaxy With Spiral Arms, Surrounded by Other Spiral Arms

By Matthew Williams - April 21, 2020 08:10 PM UTC | Extragalactic

After 30 years, Hubble is still providing us with breathtaking images - like this one of NGC 2273, a spiral galaxy that has arms within arms!

Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov Formed in a Very Cold Environment

By Matthew Williams - April 21, 2020 06:52 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Using the ALMA array, astronomers were able to detect the chemical composition of an interstellar object as 2I/Borisov began releasing gas from its interior.

Astronomers Watch a Nova Go From Start to Finish for the First Time

By Evan Gough - April 21, 2020 05:25 PM UTC | Stars

An ocean floor bacteria has been found with a totally bizarre metabolism

By Paul Sutter - April 21, 2020 01:37 PM UTC | Astrobiology

Rocket Lab was Able to Catch Falling Inert Rocket Stage With a Helicopter, Continuing Their Path to Reusability

By Matthew Williams - April 20, 2020 09:12 PM UTC | Space Exploration

Just prior to the isolation order, commercial launch provider Rocket Lab conducted a successful mid-air recovery of a test stage, paving the way for reusable rockets.

Catching the Peak of the 2020 April Lyrids

By David Dickinson - April 20, 2020 02:02 PM UTC | Observing

Stuck at home with clear skies? We're all in a similar situation, as the ongoing pandemic sees most of the worldwide amateur astronomy community observing from home or from their backyard. One astronomical sure-fire event coming up this week requires no special equipment: just a set of working Mk-1 eyeballs and a clear sky: the April Lyrids.

Astronomers Might Have Imaged a Second Planet Around Nearby Proxima Centauri - and it Might Have a Huge Set of Rings

By Matthew Williams - April 18, 2020 07:17 PM UTC | Exoplanets

A new study by a team using data from the Very Large Telescope's SPHERE instrument, may have caught a direct image of Proxima c (which could have a system of rings)

Betelgeuse Is Bright Again

By Brian Koberlein - April 18, 2020 03:04 PM UTC | Stars

Anak Krakatau Erupted a Few Days Ago. Here's What it Looked Like From Space

By Evan Gough - April 17, 2020 04:09 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Why was there more matter than antimatter in the Universe? Neutrinos might give us the answer

By Brian Koberlein - April 17, 2020 03:29 PM UTC | Cosmology

Gravity is tested down to a scale smaller than the thickness of a human hair

By Paul Sutter - April 17, 2020 02:49 PM UTC | Physics

Even More Things That Saved Apollo 13: The Nail-biting Re-entry Sequence

By Nancy Atkinson - April 17, 2020 01:34 PM UTC | Missions

An Earth-Sized World Orbiting in its Star's Habitable Zone Was Found in Older Kepler Data

By Matthew Williams - April 17, 2020 01:22 AM UTC | Exoplanets

Searching through archival Kepler data has revealed another exoplanet around Kepler-1649, the most Earth-like exoplanet discovered to date

Astronomers Finally Think They Understand Where Interstellar Object Oumuamua Came From and How it Formed

By Evan Gough - April 16, 2020 05:01 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Light Behaves Really Strangely Around a Black Hole

By Matthew Williams - April 16, 2020 04:31 PM UTC | Black Holes

A new study led by Caltech researchers show that light can be reflected off of a black hole's disk by its powerful gravity.

Astronomers Measure the Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf for the First Time. Spoiler: Insanely Fast

By Evan Gough - April 15, 2020 05:17 PM UTC | Exoplanets

Even More Things That Saved Apollo 13: Charging the Batteries

By Nancy Atkinson - April 15, 2020 04:42 PM UTC | Missions

Venice From Space Looks Very Different This Year

By Evan Gough - April 15, 2020 03:52 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Comet Y4 ATLAS Breaks Up...Enter Comet F8 SWAN

By David Dickinson - April 15, 2020 09:59 AM UTC | Planetary Science

When it comes to comets, the only thing that is certain is the orbit. Though the cosmos has yet to send us a really bright comet for 2020 to keep us occupied during the ongoing worldwide pandemic and lock down, it has sent us a steady stream of descent binocular comets, including C/2017 T2 PanSTARRS, C/2019 Y1 ATLAS, and C/2019 Y4 ATLAS. And though Y4 ATLAS won't be match the "Comet of the Century" hype, another interesting binocular comet has just made its presence known over the past weekend: C/2020 F8 SWAN.

Thanks to COVID-19, nothing's moving, and seismologists can tell

By Paul Sutter - April 14, 2020 09:13 PM UTC | Planetary Science

During Mass Extinction Events, Volcanoes Were Releasing About the Same Amount of CO2 as We Are Today

By Evan Gough - April 14, 2020 06:31 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Weekly Space Hangout: April 15, 2020 - Rise of the Space Age Millennials with Laura Forczyk

By susie - April 14, 2020 02:33 PM UTC | Space Policy

Even More Things That Saved Apollo 13, part 1: The Barbecue Roll

By Nancy Atkinson - April 13, 2020 06:42 PM UTC | Space Exploration

When Comets Break Up, the Fragments Can Be Devastating If They Hit the Earth

By Evan Gough - April 13, 2020 03:29 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Carnival of Space #658-659

By susie - April 13, 2020 02:06 PM UTC | Site News

This is How the ESA and NASA Will be Working Together to Bring Rocks Back From Mars

By Matthew Williams - April 12, 2020 06:58 PM UTC | Planetary Science

The ESA has entered into a lucrative collaboration to help NASA get its Martian rock samples back to Earth.

Trump Signs an Executive Order Allowing Mining the Moon and Asteroids

By Matthew Williams - April 11, 2020 08:31 PM UTC | Space Policy

The Trump administration just signed an executive order that has given the green light to asteroid and lunar mining and other commercial ventures in space.

NASA's Plans For a Lunar Base Camp

By Matthew Williams - April 09, 2020 05:24 PM UTC | Space Exploration

In a recent report submitted to the National Space Council, NASA has detailed its plans for building a lunar base camp on the Moon that will allow for long-term stays there.

Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov Appears to Have Broken in Half

By Evan Gough - April 09, 2020 04:53 PM UTC | Planetary Science