Space, Science, Sci Fi, Technology and Exploration.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been getting a good look at the nearby Luhman 16 AB system for the past few years, providing further details its behavior and composition. The Luhman 16 AB system wasn’t discovered until 2013, which is surprising given that the system is the third known closest system to our own star, …
Continue reading "Nearby Brown Dwarf Gets The Hubble Treatment"
On May 31st, at the University of Chicago’s William Eckhardt Research Centre Auditorium, officials from National Aeronautics and Space Administration will announce a new mission, Solar Probe Plus (SPP), to travel closer to the Sun than ever before. ICYMI: Why does Uranus spin the wrong way? Solar Probe Plus (SPP) will launch in summer of …
Continue reading "Hot Topic: NASA Announce Mission To Visit The Sun"
The James Webb Space Telescope will soon be on the move from Maryland to Texas, but how do you transport a giant telescope worth almost 10 billion dollars? Very carefully, obviously. The James Webb Space Telescope is charged with the job of peering into the cosmos and giving humanity an unprecedented look at the universe. …
Continue reading "The James Webb Space Telescope: To Be Handled With Care"
Intensely active volcanoes on the surface of Io have created an 8,300 square mile depression on the surface of the fourth largest Jovian moon. All the excitement around moons has been centered on Enceladus lately, with the announcement of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of its subsurface ocean and the possibility of life outside our …
Continue reading "Io And Behold: Huge Lava Waves Seen On Jupiter’s Moon"
Parallel trenches on the south pole of Enceladus have been labeled ‘tiger stripes’ by enthusiastic scientists, but could life exist beneath the tiger stripes of this leaky moon? For those not particularly interested in astronomy (how could you not be?), Enceladus is a small icy moon that orbits the gas giant, Saturn. It’s not exactly …
Continue reading "Enceladus: The Leaky Moon With Tiger Stripes"
Sirius is a nearby star that is twice as far as our closest neighbor, yet 16 times as bright. Researchers think that we can get there and study the star within 69 years. Astronomy has always felt fleetingly futile for me. Despite longing to know more, and yearning for the answer to the fundamental question …
Continue reading "You Can’t Be Sirius? 69 Years To Visit A Stellar neighbor"
Uranus might be the butt of all astronomy jokes, literally, but some think that a mission to Uranus could do wonders for the scientific community and our solar system understanding. Uranus is a pretty lonely place. It hasn’t received a visitor since a 5 hour fly past in 1986, when Voyager 2 stopped by to …
Continue reading "Uranus: What A Mission To The Ice Giant Could Do For Science"
Enceladus is one of 62 moons orbiting the gas giant, Saturn, but it might be unique in the fact that conditions beneath the surface of the icy moon could be perfect for life to have developed. The excitement came after NASA revealed that Cassini, its spacecraft currently exploring Saturn and its environment, flew through plumes of …
Continue reading "Enceladus: The Moon That Could Change Everything"
As well as investigating exoplanets and exomoons in the cosmos, astronomers have recently been studying distant members of our own stellar neighborhood. The planetary body, 2014 UZ224, more affectionately known as DeeDee, has been studied by teams interpreting data from Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). It lies about 3 times the distance of Pluto from …
Continue reading "DeeDee Investigated: Astronomers Check Out Distant Member Of Our Solar System"
Detecting and confirming an exoplanet is really difficult; it takes expensive satellite equipment, skilled researchers and lots of time trawling through mountains of data. Detecting a piece of rock orbiting one of these exoplanets is almost impossible, which is why we haven’t done it yet. This year, however, might be the first year that we …
Continue reading "Beta Pictoris B Could Be The First Exoplanet With An Exomoon"
