Recent Studies Indicate the Sun is Marginally Smaller Than Official Estimates. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIAPhysicists' insistence on celestial bodies being non-perfect spheres raises questions about our understanding of their true dimensions. In the case of the Sun, renowned for its familiarity, discrepancies emerge when various methods are employed to measure its size.The International Astronomical Union, in...
Psyche Probe's Deep Space Optical Communications Sets Record for Distant Laser Data Transmission. Credit: ProleR/ShutterstockIn a groundbreaking achievement, a deep space experiment conducted aboard NASA's Psyche spacecraft has successfully transmitted a laser message to Earth from a location surpassing the Moon's distance for the first time. The achievement by the Deep Space Optical Communications...
Credit: UnsplashALMA, a big telescope, looked at an old star and saw it really well. The star has a ring of gas around it, and some of the gas is moving away into space. Using this powerful telescope in the future will help us understand not only how stars end but also how planets...
A visual representation capturing the formidable burst of gamma rays, stemming from an explosion in the remote cosmos, which reached Earth on October 9 of the previous year.Last year witnessed an extraordinary celestial event as Earth encountered the brightest flash of light ever recorded in the night sky, unsettling the upper atmosphere in an...
In a static image, Erasmus appears indistinguishable from any typical comet. However, as time progressed, its tail revealed a lively wag, reminiscent of an animated and spirited puppy. Credit: NASA.Renowned astronomer David H. Levy once likened comets to cats, asserting, "They both have tails and do precisely what they want." With his extensive experience...
NASA's asteroid-probing spacecraft, Lucy, has conducted its initial close-up observations, revealing an entirely unexpected find. The asteroid Dinkinesh not only possesses a small orbiting moon but, remarkably, this moon is composed of two objects fused together.Launched in 2021, Lucy is on track to explore more asteroids than any other spacecraft in history. Its primary...
Credit: PixaobayThe James Webb Space Telescope from NASA has initiated its examination of the famous supernova, SN 1987A, situated 168,000 light-years distant in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This supernova has been under extensive scrutiny for nearly four decades, spanning from gamma rays to radio waves, since its detection in February 1987. Fresh observations using...
A Perseid meteor in the same frame as the galaxy M31. Credit: PixaobayThe Perseid meteor shower is set to peak on the night of 12-13 August this year, promising an exciting spectacle for skywatchers. This meteor shower is most visible from the northern hemisphere, and under perfect conditions with clear skies, observers might be...
Credit: Unsplash.A global team of cosmologists has discovered through computer simulations that observing gravitational waves from merging black holes can reveal the real nature of dark matter. Dr. Alex Jenkins of University College London will co-author their discovery today at the 2023 National Astronomy Meeting.The team studied the production of gravitational wave signals in...
Black hole. Credit: Unsplash.Joseph Simon, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, employed computer simulations to make predictions about the masses of the largest supermassive black holes existing in the universe.In a press statement, Simon highlighted the substantial mass of the black hole situated...
