Space

It is galaxy season in the northern hemisphere, with Ursa Mayor at the zenith during the night and the Virgo cluster as high as it gets. And if you have ever put your eye on the eyepiece of a large telescope aimed at a far galaxy, you will agree it is qui ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 14 2015 - 4:37am

Abell 3827: Self-Interacting Dark Matter 5,000 Lght-Years Away?

A team of astronomers studied the simultaneous collision of four galaxies in the galaxy cluster Abell 3827 and could trace out where the mass lies within the system and compare the distribution of the dark matter with the positions of the luminous galaxie ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 15 2015 - 8:18am

Can Moons Have Moons? Or Rings?

I wrote this when New Horizons was approaching Pluto, and expected to find new moons and possibly a ring system. So, just as a fun question to hook this post on, I asked, could it find a moon of a moon? Or a moon with rings? ...

Article - Robert Walker - Oct 5 2018 - 3:40pm

As Dawn Approaches, The First Color Images Of Ceres

Astronomers and planetary scientists have been waiting with bated breath for the first detailed close-up images of Ceres, the solar system’s largest asteroid. Now, with NASA’s Dawn spacecraft approaching closer each day, tantalizing new color imagery has ...

Article - The Conversation - Apr 17 2015 - 6:55pm

Will Asteroid 2012 TC4 Hit Earth in October 2017?

On Oct. 12, 2017, the asteroid 2012 TC4 is slated to whizz by Earth dangerously close. The exact distance of its closest approach is uncertain, as well as its size. Based on observations in October 2012 when the space rock missed our planet, astronomers e ...

Blog Post - Tomasz Nowakowski - Apr 18 2015 - 7:29pm

It Shouldn't Be There: Henize 2-10 And The Cosmic Conundrum

What does it mean when a supermassive black hole exists in a place where it isn't supposed to exist? It's another puzzle of the early universe. Henize 2-10 is a small irregular galaxy that is not too far away, at least in astronomical terms: 30 ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 24 2015 - 2:23pm

That Enormous Hole In The Universe Might Not Be Alone

Astronomers have found evidence of a giant void that could be the largest known structure in the universe. The “supervoid” solves a controversial cosmic puzzle: it explains the origin of a large and anomalously cold region of the sky. However, future obse ...

Article - The Conversation - Apr 21 2015 - 4:50pm

Constellation Eridanus- A Cold Hole In The Cosmic Microwave Background

In 2004, astronomers examining a map of the radiation leftover from the Big Bang (the cosmic microwave background, or CMB) discovered the Cold Spot, a larger-than-expected unusually cold area of the sky. The physics surrounding the Big Bang theory predict ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2015 - 6:16pm

51 Pegasi B Is First Exoplanet Detected In The Visible Light Spectrum

51 Pegasi b, about 50 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus, was discovered in 1995 and was the the first confirmed exoplanet to be found orbiting an ordinary star like our Sun. It is the archetypal Hot Jupiter-- a class of planets simila ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2015 - 7:58am

Sorry Star Trek Fans, Tau Ceti Is Not The Next Earth

As the search continues for Earth-size planets orbiting at just the right distance from their star, a region termed the habitable zone, the number of potentially life-supporting planets grows. In two decades we have progressed from having no extrasolar pl ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 26 2015 - 10:04am