Astrophysics

Astronomers Want to Build A Forty Foot Space Telescope to Find the Next Earth

With Pluto millions of miles behind us and construction of the James Webb Space Telescope moving swiftly along, astronomers are already thinking about the Next Big Mission. At the top of their wish list? A forty foot-wide orbital telescope that’ll search for proof of life beyond Earth. At the American Astronomical Society meeting this week,…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Feb 1

This Cosmic Fart Cloud Is On a Collision Course With Our Galaxy

The cosmos is littered with clouds of star-forming gas, but few are as well studied as the Smith Cloud, set to crash into our galaxy in 30 million years. God-fearing humans might ask: Where did this unholy dust ball come from, and why is it heading straight for us? Now, science has the answer. It’s…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Jan 29

Kepler May Be the Most Productive Broken Telescope Ever

The Kepler spacecraft came roaring back into the news last week, when scientists announced that the plucky little planet hunter had unearthed hundreds of new exoplanets in our cosmic backyard, despite being literally broken. But that’s not all Kepler’s been up to—by a long shot. The Kepler space telescope was humanity’s premier planet-seeking instrument from…

Tech News Maddie Stone Jan 12

The First Age Map of the Galaxy Could Reveal Our Cosmic Origins

The Milky Way may have 13.6 billion years under its belt, but its stars range from newborns to ancients. Astronomers mapped how old the stars are, creating the first-ever age map of our galaxy—and this map could give us clues about how life in the Milky Way started. The map, unveiled today at the 227th…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Jan 8

There’s Something Very Strange Lurking In the Space Between Galaxies

In the starless void of intergalactic space, there are clouds of cosmic gas as old as the Milky Way. They produce no visible light, and they barely radiate heat. Now, for the first time, astronomers have determined their size. These shadowy structures are as big as galaxies. That’s according to Jeffrey Cooke of Swinburne University…

Tech News Maddie Stone Jan 7

This Stormy Star Is Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before

Astronomers are comparing it to Jupiter’s red spot: a forever storm large enough to swallow three Earths. Except this monster tempest appears to be raging on a star. The object in question, W1906+40, belongs to a class of relatively cool celestial bodies known as L-dwarfs. Despite their low temperatures, some L-dwarfs fuse atoms and produce…

Tech News Maddie Stone Dec 12

A Groundbreaking Physics Laboratory Is About to Blast Into Space

A remarkable scientific experiment is about to leave Earth on a six week journey that’ll end a million miles away. The LISA Pathfinder marks the beginning of humanity’s outer space hunt for the elusive gravitational waves first predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Dec 2

Astronomers Spy Massive Galaxy Cluster 8.5 Billion Light Years From Earth

Peering into the distant reaches of space is like turning back time. The bright red orbs at the center of this image are galaxies, as they existed 8.5 billion years ago in a faraway corner of the universe. Together, they form a cluster that grew to mind-boggling proportions long before the birth of our Solar…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Nov 3

What Happens When Neutron Stars Collide?

One of two things happens when neutron stars collide: they merge together to form a new, larger neutron star, or they collapse into a black hole. But which happens when? That leads to another, trickier question: How big can a neutron star get? This is going to sound weird, but mathematically speaking, we aren’t entirely…

Tech News Mika McKinnon Nov 2

There Actually Is Sound in Outer Space

You’ve heard it before: In space, no one can hear you scream. That’s because sound doesn’t move through a vacuum, and everyone knows that space is a vacuum. The thing is, that’s not completely true. Space isn’t uniform nothingness. It’s full of stuff. In between the stars, there are clouds of gas and dust. These…

Space & Spaceflight Kiona Smith-Strickland Oct 28

This Is What it Looks Like When a Black Hole Shreds a Star

When a star wanders too close to a black hole, immense gravitational forces begin to rip it apart in an epic cosmic slaying called a “tidal disruption event.” Some of the star’s mass is flung outward into space, while the rest is drawn in, triggering a powerful flare that showers the sky with x-rays. Using…

Tech News Maddie Stone Oct 22

Behold the Mysterious Beauty of a Black Hole Collision

Toss a pebble in a pond and watch the tiny ripples radiate outwards. The waves you’ve created bear striking resemblance to another phenomenon, one taking place trillions of miles away at the center of a distant galaxy. The difference is, when two black holes collide, their impact surges across the fabric of spacetime itself. Black…

Physics & Chemistry Maddie Stone Oct 11

Two Black Holes are About to Smash Into Each Other

Three and a half billion light years away in the Virgo constellation, two supermassive black holes are on the verge of smacking into one another. In 100,000 years, their cosmic collision will send ripples across the fabric of spacetime. Merging black holes wield some of the most powerful forces in the universe, and they may…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Sep 16

How to Spot a Black Hole

You don’t need to be a professional astronomer to find black holes. Here’s how you can spot one, using just your laptop or phone. Radio Galaxy Zoo is an online platform that allows cosmically-inclined individuals to make valuable contributions to astronomy, by identifying radio jets from supermassive black holes (SBHs) and matching these features to…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Sep 8

This is the Oldest Galaxy We’ve Found So Far

Astrophysicists at Caltech say they’ve detected the oldest, most distant galaxy known so far. It’s 13.2 billion years old — just over half a billion years younger than the universe itself — and the discovery may change what astrophysicists know about the early history of the universe. Adi Zitrin and Richard Ellis first spotted EGS8p7…

Space & Spaceflight Kiona Smith-Strickland Sep 6

A New Mission Will Search for Ripples in Spacetime

In the distant reaches of the Universe, exploding stars and supermassive black holes are bending the very fabric of spacetime. It’s hard to wrap our brains around such tremendous forces, but we may be able to quantify them, in the form of gravitational waves. A new European Space Agency mission marks humanity’s first bold attempt…

Physics & Chemistry Maddie Stone Sep 3

A Double Black Hole Powers a Brilliant Galactic Star Factory

Six hundred million light years away, a pair of black holes spiral furiously about one another at the brilliant core of a starburst galaxy. Black holes are usually lone wolves, devouring light and matter at centers of their galaxies. But when galaxies collide, two black holes can in theory become locked in a gravitational embrace,…

Tech News Maddie Stone Aug 29

Scientists Confirm the Existence of Cosmic Neutrinos

A team of Antarctic scientists has just verified the existence of cosmic neutrinos — tiny, energetic particles that might hail from far reaches of the Milky Way and beyond. And these ghostly little flecks of matter could hold the key to some of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. High-energy cosmic neutrinos are thought to…

Physics & Chemistry Maddie Stone Aug 20

The Newly Proposed High Definition Space Telescope Makes Hubble Look Like a Toy

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will be “in many ways a hundred times” more capable than Hubble, isn’t launching until 2018, but already astrophysicists are thinking about its successor. They’re calling it the High Definition Space Telescope (HDST). That’s it on the far right, towering over both its predecessors. Here’s Ramin Skibba reporting…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Aug 14

The Universe is Slowly Dying

Brace yourselves: winter is coming. And by winter I mean the slow heat-death of the Universe, and by brace yourselves I mean don’t get terribly concerned because the process will take a very, very, very long time. (But still, it’s coming.) Based on findings from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, which used seven…

io9 Jason Major – Universe Today Aug 11

Astronomers Want to Build A Forty Foot Space Telescope to Find the Next Earth

This Cosmic Fart Cloud Is On a Collision Course With Our Galaxy

Kepler May Be the Most Productive Broken Telescope Ever

The First Age Map of the Galaxy Could Reveal Our Cosmic Origins

There’s Something Very Strange Lurking In the Space Between Galaxies

This Stormy Star Is Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before

A Groundbreaking Physics Laboratory Is About to Blast Into Space

Astronomers Spy Massive Galaxy Cluster 8.5 Billion Light Years From Earth

What Happens When Neutron Stars Collide?

There Actually Is Sound in Outer Space

This Is What it Looks Like When a Black Hole Shreds a Star

Behold the Mysterious Beauty of a Black Hole Collision

Two Black Holes are About to Smash Into Each Other

How to Spot a Black Hole

This is the Oldest Galaxy We’ve Found So Far

A New Mission Will Search for Ripples in Spacetime

A Double Black Hole Powers a Brilliant Galactic Star Factory

Scientists Confirm the Existence of Cosmic Neutrinos

The Newly Proposed High Definition Space Telescope Makes Hubble Look Like a Toy

The Universe is Slowly Dying

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