Astronomy

Newly discovered super-Earth is one of the best candidates for life yet

European astronomers using the HARPS planet searcher have detected a super-Earth orbiting an orange dwarf star that’s only 44 light years away. The researchers aren’t entirely sure if it’s a rocky planet or not, but it does have a number of key features that make it an excellent candidate for life, including its presence within…

io9 George Dvorsky

The Milky Way’s black hole has shot out its brightest flare ever

For some unknown reason, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy shoots out an X-ray flare about once a day. These flares last a few hours with the brightness ranging from a few times to nearly one hundred times that of the black hole’s regular output. But back in February 2012,…

io9 Nancy Atkinson - Universe Today

You Don’t Need a PhD in Astronomy To Decipher This Satellite Watch

It’s still going to take some practice to be able to read the time at a glance, but Mr. Jones’ new Satellite watch doesn’t look as complicated as Tokyo Flash’s latest efforts. And astronomy enthusiasts will appreciate its use of hour and minute markers that look like orbiting celestial bodies. Instead of an LCD display…

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski

GO VOTE. Even astronauts aboard the ISS do it.

For those of you in the U.S., here’s a friendly reminder to get out and vote today. And if, for some reason, you feel like your polling place is a little too far to make the trip, just remember that even astronauts aboard the International Space Station find a way to vote on election day…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Oh hell yes: Neil deGrasse Tyson to appear in upcoming issue of Superman

HUGE props to DC Comics on this one. The company is releasing a new book this week (Action Comics Superman #14) that addresses several heretofore unanswered questions about Krypton and the star it orbits. But here’s the kicker: they consulted Neil deGrasse Tyson — the sexiest astrophysicist on Earth and director of NYC’s Hayden Planetarium…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

How to Get a Text Message Alert Whenever the ISS Passes Overhead

If you’re a lazy astronomer, the kinda person who likes gazing into the night sky but never plans ahead, good news: NASA has launched a new service which will pop you a text message or email whenever the international space station is about to pass over your place, so you can dash outside and take…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe

How to take pictures of the Milky Way without leaving the galaxy

On planet Earth, we sit at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, nestled thousands of light years from the black hole at its center, in the Orion–Cygnus Arm. In our textbooks we see beautiful images of our own celestial neighborhood, a spiral of stars emanating from a galactic core. But if we’ve never sent…

io9 Keith Veronese

Our asteroid belt is unique — and that’s why life may be rare in the Galaxy

Our asteroid belt, which is situated between Jupiter and Mars, has traditionally been seen as something of a nuisance. Every once in awhile one of these rocks dislodges itself and heads straight for Earth, what often results in a cataclysmic impact. But ironically, as a new study from the University of Colorado suggests, we may…

io9 George Dvorsky

And now for a little sense of scale

There’s no two ways about it: hurricane Sandy is huge. With its whirling winds at one point stretching a mind blowing 1,100 miles in diameter, it’s the most enormous Atlantic hurricane in recorded history. But Sandy – not to mention our entire planet – is still downright tiny compared to Saturn, and few images of…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

NASA detects extreme temperatures on Saturn after an enormous storm

In December 2010, Saturn was quickly overrun by a storm several times the size of Earth. For months the atmospheric outburst raged, growing and traveling so quickly that it soon managed to wrap itself around the entire northern hemisphere. To date, it is the most massive storm we’ve ever observed on the ringed planet. Now,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Meet Cheops: A satellite whose only job is to search for habitable planets

It doesn’t look like much, but once operational, this little satellite could serve as a key tool in the search for extraterrestrial life. Called Cheops, short for CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite, the European-launched device will target solar systems known to host exoplanets. And by analyzing the spectral signatures of these exoplanets, the space-based telescope will help…

io9 George Dvorsky

Dive Right Into the Largest Ever Image of Our Galaxy’s Centre

You are looking at more than 84 million stars, the largest ever catalogue of the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Astronomers at the Paranal Observatory in Cerro Paranal, Chile, stitched the 9 gigapixels of the original image from thousands of individual infrared pictures.You can see the full, zoomable version here. It contains more…

Space & Spaceflight Jacob Aron - New Scientist

Remember the fireball that exploded over California last week? A chunk of it hit a house.

The odds of getting beaned by a meteorite are low. Like, really low. (In fact, the odds of being killed by a meteorite are actually higher than your odds of simply being struck by one. Yes, really. See here for more info.) But last week, Novato, California resdient Lisa Webber came pretty close. https://gizmodo.com/why-youre-more-likely-to-die-from-a-meteor-strike-than-5839058 According…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

The Best Photos From This Weekend’s Orionid Meteor Shower

This weekend marked the peak of this year’s stunning Orionid meteor shower. Photographs of the annual celestial lightshow are still rolling in (stargazers can expect to spot intermittent meteors during predawn hours for the next few days), but here are a few of our favorites so far. http://io9.com/5951686/everything-you-need-to-know-to-catch-this-weekends-orionid-meteor-shower Photographed by Frank Rinas near Cologne, Germany…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

A pair of Milky Ways smash into each other 300 million light-years away

These two galaxies have been slowly merging for eons, and the process is now almost over — indeed, the galaxies now share a single name, NGC 2623. This could be an early preview of our own galaxy’s fate. The two galaxies that now form the newly born NGC 2623 were likely both once spiral galaxies,…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Everything you need to know to catch this weekend’s Orionid meteor shower

The Orionid meteor shower — one of the year’s most spectacular natural light shows — is upon us. This weekend, Earth will plow through a dense stream of celestial debris given off by Halley’s Comet. These fragments of Halley will collide with the planet’s atmosphere at speeds approaching 150,000 miles per hour, setting the night…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Observing the Sun through this gradient filter is like nothing you’ve ever experienced

The last time you heard the term “gradient filter,” it was probably in reference to a feature on a photo editing program, but scientists studying images and video collected by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory use gradient filters, too — often with absolutely mesmerizing results. In this just-released video, dubbed “Gradient Sun” by the talented folks…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

NASA Turns Sun Into a Beautiful Color Wonderland

Sometimes science can turn the Universe into art, like this video from NASA, made using a gradient filter. From NASA: Science and art techniques are often quite similar, indeed one may inform the other or be improved based on lessons from the other arena. One such case is a technique known as a “gradient filter”…

Tech News Jesus Diaz

The Absolute Best Pictures of Last Night’s Blazing Meteor Over California

An absolutely spectacular meteor was witnessed tearing across the California sky last night, reportedly generating a rare sonic boom in the process. We’ve rounded up a handful of the best clips and images of the meteor and featured them below, and it’s something you’ll definitely want to see — this thing was absolutely ridiculous. Top…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

How Will Humans Get to Alpha Centauri?

Astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a star in Alpha Centauri, just 4.3 light-years from Earth. With surface temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees fahrenheit, this particular planet would be inhospitable, but the fact that it exists at all raises hopes of finding another, more human-friendly planet within the same star system. https://gizmodo.com/scientists-discover-a-planet-in-alpha-centauri-the-sta-5952357 Just…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Newly discovered super-Earth is one of the best candidates for life yet

The Milky Way’s black hole has shot out its brightest flare ever

You Don’t Need a PhD in Astronomy To Decipher This Satellite Watch

GO VOTE. Even astronauts aboard the ISS do it.

Oh hell yes: Neil deGrasse Tyson to appear in upcoming issue of Superman

How to Get a Text Message Alert Whenever the ISS Passes Overhead

How to take pictures of the Milky Way without leaving the galaxy

Our asteroid belt is unique — and that’s why life may be rare in the Galaxy

And now for a little sense of scale

NASA detects extreme temperatures on Saturn after an enormous storm

Meet Cheops: A satellite whose only job is to search for habitable planets

Dive Right Into the Largest Ever Image of Our Galaxy’s Centre

Remember the fireball that exploded over California last week? A chunk of it hit a house.

The Best Photos From This Weekend’s Orionid Meteor Shower

A pair of Milky Ways smash into each other 300 million light-years away

Everything you need to know to catch this weekend’s Orionid meteor shower

Observing the Sun through this gradient filter is like nothing you’ve ever experienced

NASA Turns Sun Into a Beautiful Color Wonderland

The Absolute Best Pictures of Last Night’s Blazing Meteor Over California

How Will Humans Get to Alpha Centauri?

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