[ad_1] Don’t worry about being so close to an all-consuming beast. Unlike some black holes, such as the supermassive one believed to be at the heart of our galaxy, this one is both small and doesn’t “violently” interact with its surroundings or broadcast its presence with X-rays. It’s one of the first discovered stellar-mass holes […]
Category: astronomy
Watch a “potentially hazardous asteroid” fly by Earth tonight
[ad_1] An asteroid will hit Earth — it’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” Fortunately, the space rock known as 1998 OR2 won’t be crashing your quarantine party, but it’s still considered a potentially hazardous object since it will come within four million miles of Earth. Armchair astronomers can watch a livestream of the […]
SpaceX will make its Starlink satellites less of a blight on the night sky
[ad_1] On April 22nd, SpaceX launched its eighth payload of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. Shortly thereafter, the satellites could be seen from the ground, appearing to be dots of light traversing the night sky. According to Elon Musk, the company is working on reducing the glare that these cubesats create. The founder and […]
Scientists find an Earth-like planet hiding in old Kepler data
[ad_1] These parameters don’t guarantee that the planet will support life, even if there aren’t any errors. Red dwaves tend to flare up and hurt the chances for life. Researchers also don’t know the atmospheric composition, which could rule out life even if every other condition is ideal. With that said, NASA is hoping to […]
Scientists visualize a black hole plasma jet in unprecedented detail
[ad_1] When a supermassive black hole features such jets, it’s classified as a blazar. Astronomers posit that the magnetic poles of the black hole channel the energy up from the accretion disc and shoot it out with a tremendous amount of energy — the jet captured in the image is traveling at about 0.995 times […]
Discovery shows early galaxies could have very short lives
[ad_1] The findings are “not too far away” from what recent computer models of the universe would predict, but it’s far enough that it could force astronomers to rethink those models and adjust their understanding of the universe’s early days. You might see a more refined model in the relatively near future. The researchers expect […]
NASA’s closest-ever Sun flybys reveal how solar wind works
[ad_1] There were more mysteries. The probe spotted tiny energetic particle events that never reach Earth, as well as bursts with oddly high levels of heavy elements. Both may be more common than scientists first thought, NASA said. At the same time, the craft also answered questions — humanity now has the first direct evidence […]
Astronomers find stellar black hole so large it shouldn’t exist
[ad_1] The team used China’s Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) to find stars orbiting objects that are seemingly invisible — a technique that had been proposed back in 1783, but hadn’t really been possible until recently. They then used both the US’ Keck I telescope and Spain’s Gran Telescopio Canarias to determine […]
Astronomers create first global map of Saturn’s moon Titan
[ad_1] Just shy of two thirds of the surface is dominated by flat plains, but 17 percent of it (mostly at the equator) is blanketed in dunes. Another 14 percent is hilly or mountainous, while 1.5 percent of it has a labyrinthine terrain shaped by erosion and rain. What you don’t see is just as […]
NASA renames Kuiper Belt object following controversy
[ad_1] NASA’s nickname for the distant Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, Ultima Thule, has been more than a little contentious. While it has innocuous meanings, Ultima Thule is also the term white supremacists use to refer to a mythical homeland. The agency is sidestepping that controversy, however. It just officially named the object Arrokoth, or […]