Space

The gap between hypothesis and observation is never more evident than efforts to figure out howblack holes produce so many high-power X-rays. Gas spiraling toward a black hole inevitably results…

David Brin first wrote this in 2006, summarizing a controversy that was then emerging among members of the community engaged in SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent civilizations. Since…

While the universe is littered with planets, comets and lots of other rocky bodies, how tiny grains of dust in the disc around a young star grow bigger and bigger, to eventually become rubble and…

I am used to odd looks when I say I'm flying a satellite to convert the ionosphere to music.  The field of art/science hybrids is hard to assess.  What's your call on putting a TARDIS in…

Astronomers can look back in time by gathering light from distant stars that was sent billions of years ago. Another way to learn about the past is to study similar stars to our own, but at a much…

While the Orion Nebula is one of the closest stellar nurseries to Earth and that makes for great viewing in backyard telescopes, it is not the most prolific star-forming region in our galaxy. That…

In October 2014 and February 2016 Proxima Centauri, the red dwarf star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars. Astronomers plotted Proxima Centauri's precise path in the heavens…

A team of astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope has imaged a faint object moving near a bright star. With an estimated mass of four to five times that of Jupiter, this exoplanet, named HD…

Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be its closest to Earth on Friday at 1:59 p.m. Pacific time. At 1.7 miles wide it is one of the larger asteroids to swing by Earth - about the size of the rock that wiped out…

In the half year since I wrote last September, the CubeSat field has greatly moved forward.  Seven CubeSats have launched since that last blog include ESTCube-1 (solar sail test), Pegasus (…