How a “New Star” appearing in 1572 paved the way for us to truly begin understanding our Universe. “I conclude, therefore, that this star is not some kind of comet […]
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The most common source for radioactive dating depends on our Universe being active. “Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.” –James Jeans Here on […]
NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, captured the X-ray glow of a pulsar wind nebula that is shaped like a hand – or at least appears that way as ejected particles interact with nearby magnetic fields.
Even for city dwellers, the wonders of a dark, night sky might be closer than you imagine. “Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” –Walt Whitman It was just […]
And what are the odds that it’s out there? “Since stars appear to be suns, and suns, according to the common opinion, are bodies that serve to enlighten, warm, and sustain […]
Which ideas are likely, which ones are speculative, and which ones are pure fiction? “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think […]
100 years ago, we thought the Milky Way was the full extent of the Universe, containing everything. Now, we know we’re just one of many. But how many? “The human mind […]
Every letter holds a special story for those who marvel at the Universe. “When I was having that alphabet soup, I never thought that it would pay off.” –Vanna White […]
The only way out is to modify the laws of gravity, and new constraints rule those modifications out. “The discrepancy between what was expected and what has been observed has […]
A beautiful spiral just outside the Big Dipper holds many secrets that can teach us about our own Milky Way! “If I were a flower.. I would be a sunflower.To always […]
How one of the faintest galaxies in the entire Messier catalogue holds some of the greatest sights for dedicated skywatchers. “There are so many more important things to worry about […]
Is the largest object in our galaxy — our central black hole — poised to devour a massive gas cloud? “What makes us love… is when we learn all these fantastic stories. Feeding the imagination […]
Astronomers at the Very Large Telescope(VLT) in Chile are using this laser to measure the distortions of Earth’s ever changing atmosphere.
How the last open cluster ever discovered by Messier himself still holds some amazing secrets and wonder more than 200 years after its discovery. “The journey is difficult, immense. We […]
A big, bright, dust-rich barred spiral galaxy that won’t stay this way for long! “When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan […]
If we knew all we do about math and physics, but had never seen the heavens, what would we conclude? “Both the solutions must be rejected, and as these are […]
Nobody knows when the next galactic supernova might occur, but thanks to the development of massive neutrino detectors, we would have an “unprecedented peek at the action.”
Summer is coming, and with it, the most famous nebula in the night sky. “The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, […]
The internet is really, really great… for cats. In space. “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”-Albert Schweitzer We spend all week together wondering […]
How afraid of them does the science say you should actually be? “Most estimates of the mortality risk posed by asteroid impacts put it at about the same risk as flying […]
From Earth and beyond, these time lapses show our one-of-a-kind motion through the Universe. “Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.” […]
Of all the galaxies in our local supercluster, one outweighs them all. “I recognize my limits, but when I look around I realise I am not living, exactly, in a world […]
With help from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, astronomers have calculated that of all the stars in our galaxy that resemble our sun, one in five hosts an Earth-sized planet at a distance that allows for liquid water at the surface.
The stars, gas and dust of our own galaxy dominates our night sky. But what secrets does the Universe hold beyond that? “Who are we? We find that we live on […]
Found by the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s the farthest galaxy located to date, and is giving astronomers one of the earliest glimpses of what the universe was like after the Big Bang.
The core of the nearest great galaxy cluster holds a glorious sight unlike any other. “Man must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only […]
Keep politics out of science? Of course. But think what we could achieve with more science in our politics. “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree […]
Stargazer John Chumack used a homemade telescope and a QHY8 cooled single shot color CCD camera to capture this image.
Someday, the Sun will expand, engulfing Mercury and Venus, and then some. Will we survive? “They do not see what lies ahead, when Sun has faded and Moon is dead.”-J.R.R. Tolkien […]
Now that the Higgs has been discovered, the Standard Model is complete. But are there any other new particles? “The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws […]