Using the Gemini-South telescope, astronomers have performed high-resolution near-infrared spectroscopy of stars in a Galactic globular cluster known as Gran 5. They found that this cluster harbors two stellar populations with different metallicities. The finding was reported in a paper published October 28 on the pre-print server arXiv.
SpaceX sent up 6,000 pounds of cargo on a resupply mission to the International Space Station on Monday night with the rocket booster's return trip bringing a sonic boom to parts of Central Florida.
NASA's Voyager mission launched in the 1970s. Today, it's making history as it conducts new science. But how are two spacecraft from the '70s not just surviving, but thriving farther out in space than any other spacecraft has been before?
The gravitational field of a rotating black hole is powerful and strange. It is so powerful that it warps space and time back upon itself, and it is so strange that even simple concepts such as motion and rotation are turned on their heads. Understanding how these concepts play out is challenging, but they help astronomers understand how black holes generate such tremendous energy. Take, for example, the concept of frame dragging.
Many people think of the James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of Hubble 2. They understand that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has served us well but is now old and overdue for replacement. NASA seems to agree, as they have not sent a maintenance mission in over 15 years, and are already preparing to wind down operations.
On November 26, 2018, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) mission landed on Mars. This was a major milestone in Mars exploration since it was the first time a research station had been deployed to the surface to probe the planet's interior.
As ESA's Hera mission for planetary defense departed its homeworld, it looked back to Earth to show the moon orbiting around it. In this sequence of images the terrestrial disk gradually shrinks as the spacecraft recedes away from it, and the moon moving around Earth changes from a half to full moon.
The first human tissue samples from Oxford's Space Innovation Lab (SIL) have been launched and are on their way to the International Space Station, where they will be used to study the effects of space microgravity on the human aging process.
On Nov. 9, 2024, the world will mark Carl Sagan's 90th birthday—but sadly without Sagan, who died in 1996 at the age of 62.
A new generation of space materials left Earth on November 5 as they head to the International Space Station (ISS) to undergo testing in the brutal conditions of low Earth orbit.
One thing we've learned in recent decades is that exoplanets are surprisingly common. So far, we've confirmed nearly 6,000 planets, and we have evidence for thousands more. Most of these planets were discovered using the transit method. though there are other methods as well. Many stars are known to have multiple planets, such as the TRAPPIST-1 system with seven Earth-sized worlds.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international team of astronomers have observed a giant spiral galaxy designated ADF22.A1. Results of the observational campaign, published October 29 on the pre-print server arXiv, provide more insights into its inner structure.
Tiny grains from a distant asteroid are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system more than 4.6 billion years ago.
In 1963, the Arecibo Observatory became operational on the island of Puerto Rico. Measuring 305 meters (~1000 ft) in diameter, Arecibo's spherical reflector dish was the largest radio telescope in the world at the time—a record it maintained until 2016 with the construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. In December 2020, Arecibo's reflector dish collapsed after some of its support cables snapped, leading the National Science Foundation (NSF) to decommission the observatory.
Since their discovery in 2007, fast radio bursts—extremely energetic pulses of radio-frequency light—have lit up the sky repeatedly, leading astronomers on a chase to uncover their origins. Currently, confirmed fast radio bursts, or FRBs, number in the hundreds, and scientists have assembled mounting evidence for what triggers them: highly magnetized neutron stars known as magnetars (neutron stars are a type of dead star).
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