Call off the supernova watch. The red supergiant star known as Betelgeuse isn’t going to explode in a supernova after all. (Though it will at sometime in the future up to 100,000 years from now.) A couple of weeks ago we reported: For months, astronomers have been keeping a wary eye on Betelgeuse, the bright red…
Feb 21st is the day we’ll know if the puzzling dimming of Betelgeuse is just an alignment of dimming cycles in a highly variable star, or a prelude to a supernova we’ll be able to witness with our bare eyes. If it happens, the dying star will be visible in the daytime and shine as…
How the sun pumps out water from Mars into space Russian and German physicists have offered an explanation for the new data obtained by Martian satellites, capturing the “escape” of hydrogen atoms from the upper Martian atmosphere into outer space. The developed model fits well with the observations and explains a number of puzzling phenomena…
NASA, FEMA, International Partners Plan Asteroid Impact Exercise While headlines routinely report on “close shaves” and “near-misses” when near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids or comets pass relatively close to Earth, the real work of preparing for the possibility of a NEO impact with Earth goes on mostly out of the public eye. For more…
The trick is spotting the near-Earth objects first, according to NASA researchers presenting at the 2019 American Physical Society April meeting in Denver WASHINGTON, D.C., April 16, 2019 — A mere 17-20 meters across, the Chelyabinsk meteor caused extensive ground damage and numerous injuries when it exploded on impact with Earth’s atmosphere in February 2013.…
NOTE: See update below for the reveal. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project is unveiling a major black hole discovery Wednesday morning (April 10), and you can watch the event live. We live in the golden (or maybe platinum) age of astronomy. At 9 a.m. EDT today, the group of astronomers who run the global…
This could be the biggest announcement ever in the history of astronomy. Announcement and video follows. Of all the weird stuff that exists in the universe, such as quasars, pulsars, magnetars, neutron stars, red giants and white dwarfs, one of the most bizarre, and the “holy grail” for scientists to image, is the black hole.…
Subaru Telescope spots 13-billion-year-old quasars powered by black holes Princeton University Astronomers from Japan, Taiwan and Princeton University have discovered 83 quasars powered by supermassive black holes in the distant universe, from a time when the universe was less than 10 percent of its present age. “It is remarkable that such massive dense objects were…
Citizen scientist finds ancient white dwarf star with enigmatic dust rings ASU astronomer Adam Schneider helps research team zero in on puzzling astrophysical object From ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY A volunteer working with the NASA-led Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project has found the oldest and coldest known white dwarf — an old Earth-sized remnant of a…
In only a few days, newly-discovered Comet Iwamoto will split the orbits of Earth and Mars, making a relatively close approach to our planet visible through small telescopes. This is a rare visit. The comet comes from the realm of Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects, a distant region of the solar system inhabited by strange objects such…