Astronomy

A year’s worth of beautiful time-lapse photography of the southern sky

This beautiful video took over a year to put together in 2009 and 2010, and it’s made up of over 30 hours of exposure. Shot from the southern coast of Australia, it provides an awe-inspiring view of the southern constellations. This video is the work of photographer and amateur astronomer Alex Cherney, who created it…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The short guide to our nearest cosmic neighbors

Located just 4.3 light-years away, the Alpha Centauri star system is our closest neighbor. But theirs is a very different solar system, as it’s home with not one, not two, but three stars. Here’s the short guide to Alpha Centauri. The images up top were taken by the 1-Meter Schmidt Telescope and the European Southern…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Cosmic Pluralism: How Christianity briefly conquered the solar system

By the 1700s, there could no longer be any doubt. Earth was just one of many worlds orbiting the Sun, which forced scientists and theologians alike to ponder a tricky question. Would God really have bothered to create empty worlds? To many thinkers, the answer was an emphatic “no,” and so cosmic pluralism – the…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Pandora’s Cluster is a tangled mess of galaxies and dark matter

If you’re going to name a cluster of galaxies after the mythological character who unleashed evil on the world, this particular is a pretty good choice. It’s a cacophonous, mixed-up mishmash of four older clusters, plus plenty of dark matter. Officially, this is cluster Abell 2744, and it’s about two million light-years across. Because the…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

This cosmic dust cloud blocks our view of the galaxy

The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter, but that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily able to see everything our galaxy has to offer. The trouble comes from this thick nearby dust cloud, which blocks the stars behind it. This particular dust cloud is located near the constellation Corona Australis, also known as the Southern…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The Eight-Burst Nebula is one of the strangest sights in the universe

The evocatively named Eight-Burst Nebula is formed from the gases spewing forth from two dying stars. But that’s about all we know for sure about this strangely shaped cosmic oddity. The Eight-Burst Nebula, which is officially designated NGC 3132, is what’s known as a planetary nebula. That name is a pretty big misnomer, since they…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

I Had Forgotten How Beautiful the Night Sky Is

For the first time in my life, I want to live in Wyoming. This photograph, taken by Robert Arn over the course a single night, captured the glittering and glowing night sky in 360 degrees. Why can’t the sky always look like this? Over to the left of the picture, you can see a lunar…

Tech News Casey Chan

Galactic hyperclusters are too big for the universe

Gravity forces galaxies that are relatively close together to form clusters, which in turn form superclusters between vast stretches of cosmic void. But now there’s an even bigger level of organization…and we have no idea how to explain it. In the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, the universe was basically flat, with only small…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The universe’s most powerful electric current is like a trillion bolts of lightning

About two billion light-years from Earth, there’s a huge jet of matter emanating from the core of galaxy 3C303. The jet carries a current of 10^18 amps, making it by far the highest electric current ever seen. Researchers at the University of Toronto made the find as they observed the interaction between the jet and…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Say hello to the planet Mercury…now in technicolor!

It was only three months ago that the first ever close-up images of Mercury from orbit were taken by the MESSENGER probe. Now, in commemoration of MESSENGER’s hundredth orbit of the first planet, here’s a look at Mercury’s colorful side. As those who saw MESSENGER’s first image can probably attest, Mercury isn’t exactly defined by…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

A helpful map of the 50,000 nearest galaxies

This awesome map shows the universe around us in the grandest scale possible, with each tiny dot representing a different galaxy. Thanks to this cosmic atlas, you’ll never again mix up the Corona Borealis Supercluster with the Large Magellanic Cloud. Of course, most of those 50,000 galaxies aren’t named on this map, for two very…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

This is the busiest star factory in the galaxy

This amazing image reveals the Great Carina Nebula, one of the most active star-forming regions in our galaxy. But it isn’t just new stars that are being born in the nebula, as old stars are also dying in spectacular supernovas. Even by the standards of our usual space porn, this is some seriously hardcore, breathtaking…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Extraordinary Hubble Photo Shows a Gigantic Exploding Death Star In Space—or Homer Simpson

Astronomers are in awe as they witness the evolution of Supernova 1987A using the Hubble Space Telescope. I don’t blame them. It’s awesome indeed. The actual explosion was first detected in February 1987, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. https://gizmodo.com/hubble-detects-mysterious-spaceship-shaped-object-trave-5462539 Supernova 1987A—NASA, can we call this Flabbergasting Giganormous Pink Glitter Ring of Glowing Awesomeness?—is “the closest…

Tech News Jesus Diaz

When superfluid physics creates the illusion of alien civilizations

Sometimes astronomy goes nuts in many different ways at once. On rotating neutron stars (pictured), it gets particularly wild, because superfluids are involved. The result? Stars covered in highly regular triangular patterns — as if somebody built them that way. Superfluids are liquids that have zero viscosity. Like superconductors, most superfluids need to be cooled…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Canadian meteorite has all the building blocks for life

The argument that life on Earth may have been seeded from the stars just received a major boost, as scientists have found the building blocks of life inside a meteorite that landed in British Columbia in 2000. The Tagish Lake meteorite landed in January of that year, a streaking fireball that burst into more than…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Strange new class of ultra-bright supernova discovered

A new class of supernova has been discovered, with six examples of it seen so far. Powered by a mysterious source, they’re brighter and longer-lived than the novae we know now. The Palomar Transient Factory uses the telescopes at the Palomar Observatory to scan the skies, looking for flashes of light. The flashes could be…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Spectacular Coronal Mass Ejection Hitting Earth Tonight at 3.1 Million Miles Per Hour

Put on your tinfoil hats, because the Sun just had an indigestion. According to NASA, this “spectacular coronal mass ejection should deliver a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field during the late hours of June 8th or June 9th.” The CME was accompanied by a medium-sized solar flare and a minor radiation storm. The event…

Tech News Jesus Diaz

Massive eruption on the sun yesterday means a solar storm zooming by Earth tomorrow

This picture was taken by a NASA solar observatory yesterday, and it shows one of the biggest explosions we’ve ever seen on the sun. For perspective, look at the upper left corner. There’s a little circle the size of Earth. The explosion dwarfs our planet by many times. So what does this explosion mean for…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Lots of planets might have big moons just like ours

The Moon is ridiculously big relative to the size of Earth, and this was thought to be a cosmic rarity. Now it looks like rocky planets with huge moons are actually extremely common, which might help us find alien life. Earth’s Moon was formed billions of years ago, when an object the size of Mars…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Is a hole in the universe opening up…in Wyoming?

You’d be forgiven for having that reaction to this photo of the Ames Monument, a pyramid in Wyoming built to commemorate the transcontinental railroad. But that strange, unearthly light is just the beginning of the weirdness on display here. For the record, that strange light isn’t a wormhole opening up over Wyoming – it’s just…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

A year’s worth of beautiful time-lapse photography of the southern sky

The short guide to our nearest cosmic neighbors

Cosmic Pluralism: How Christianity briefly conquered the solar system

Pandora’s Cluster is a tangled mess of galaxies and dark matter

This cosmic dust cloud blocks our view of the galaxy

The Eight-Burst Nebula is one of the strangest sights in the universe

I Had Forgotten How Beautiful the Night Sky Is

Galactic hyperclusters are too big for the universe

The universe’s most powerful electric current is like a trillion bolts of lightning

Say hello to the planet Mercury…now in technicolor!

A helpful map of the 50,000 nearest galaxies

This is the busiest star factory in the galaxy

Extraordinary Hubble Photo Shows a Gigantic Exploding Death Star In Space—or Homer Simpson

When superfluid physics creates the illusion of alien civilizations

Canadian meteorite has all the building blocks for life

Strange new class of ultra-bright supernova discovered

Spectacular Coronal Mass Ejection Hitting Earth Tonight at 3.1 Million Miles Per Hour

Massive eruption on the sun yesterday means a solar storm zooming by Earth tomorrow

Lots of planets might have big moons just like ours

Is a hole in the universe opening up…in Wyoming?

Study Challenges Popular Theory on Why Primordial Bugs Were So Darn Huge

Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway’s Mystery’s Sci-Fi Film Has Its First Trailer

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