In a solar system about 1,800 light-years from Earth, two planets smacked into one another in an impact that vaporized them both. And astronomers caught them in the act.
An incandescent blob of leftover planet, lingering after an impact, could explain a surge of infrared light from a remote star, researchers report October 11 in Nature. And the ensuing debris field could also explain a subsequent dimming of the star, the team says. While scientists have glimpsed planetary debris
Names have significance, especially when they’re written in the stars.
A group of astronomers is coalescing around an idea to rename two neighbors of the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.
Named after explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the satellite galaxies are visible with the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere. But Magellan’s name is not fitting, astronomer Mia de los Reyes and colleagues argue. The leader of the first expedition to successfully circle the globe, Magellan enslaved and killed
One of a telescope operator’s primary jobs is to keep any stray light out of the instrument. Earthly and other unwelcome photons can swamp the cosmic light from distant stars and galaxies. During more than a decade as a project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, Jane Rigby obsessed over minimizing light leaks — with extraordinary success. The sky looks darker to JWST than most anyone had hoped.
Rigby herself, now the senior project scientist for JWST, is a
It is a telescope which has provided answers on the deep universe – but now it may be raising a question.
The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a perfect and rather spooky question mark in the depths of space, close to a pair of young stars called Herbig-Haro 46/47.
It is unclear if the universe has questions for us, or is providing a gift for Dr Who fans, to reflect the question mark the Time Lord used to wear
Of all the moons in the solar system, Saturn’s largest satellite might be the most extraordinary. Titan is enveloped in a thick, hazy atmosphere, and liquid methane rains gently from its sky, tugged downward by a fraction of the gravity we feel on Earth. The methane forms rivers, lakes, and small seas on Titan’s surface. Beneath the frigid ground, composed of ice as hard as rock, is even more liquid, a whole ocean of plain old H2O.
The wildest part
Excitement is building today ahead of the release of the first set of unprecedented images from NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope.
UK astronomers say they could include ‘some of the most detailed and beautiful pictures of the universe ever seen’ — with nebulae, an exoplanet and galaxy clusters all among the first objects captured.
The images will offer a ‘completely new perspective’ of our place in the stars but will also be just ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
Scientists
Much like YouTube turned a generation of watchers into creators, new advances in telescope technology are allowing amateur sky watchers to make real, meaningful contributions to science.
Astrophotography isn’t easy. It requires an understanding of stellar coordinates, when different objects will be visible, the ability to stay up late, and patience.
One firm, Unistellar, has taken a new approach to astrophotography, effectively building a camera telescope that is as easy to use as the YouTube app.
This ease of use
It has been 30 years since the first planet beyond the solar system was discovered, and to date more than 5,000 have been found – but are they all alien worlds?
Scientists have been examining the thousands of exoplanet discoveries confirmed within the Milky Way Galaxy, and three of them have turned out to be stars.
A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, looked through planets discovered using the NASA Kepler Space Telescope, double checking the measurements
