Agriculture in Syria started with a cosmic bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth’s atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the…
Category: Astronomy
Seeking Euclid’s Hidden Stars: Commissioning Looks Up
Euclid commissioning – the period after launch when a mission’s instruments and subsystems are deployed, turned on, tested and calibrated – began well. Teams at ESA’s mission control worked 24 hours a day…
Supernova Bubble Expands in New Hubble Time-Lapse Movie
Though a doomed star exploded some 20,000 years ago, its tattered remnants continue racing into space at breakneck speeds – and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has caught the action. Expanding supernova bubble…
Unexpectedly Calm and Remote Galaxy Cluster Discovered
Cluster is farthest ever spotted not disrupted by violent collisions with other galaxy clusters. Astronomers have discovered the most distant “relaxed” galaxy cluster to date — the farthest cluster ever spotted that…
Cosmic Web Lights Up in Darkness of Space
Chris Martin, the principal investigator of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, is seen inspecting the instrument in a clean room at Caltech before it was installed at Keck Observatory. Image…
X-rays Tell Us More About Origins of Visiting Space Rocks
A new study suggests that X-rays might be the key to understanding interstellar objects visiting our Solar system. A research team led by a Yale astronomer has some advice for…
Dark Matter Halos Measured Around Ancient Quasars
Making observations. Principle investigator Junya Arita and co-investigator, Yoshihiro Takeda making observations in the control room of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Image credit: Nobunari Kashikawa CC BY, University…
New Light on Strange Lava Worlds
Lava worlds, massive exoplanets home to sparkling skies and roiling volcanic seas called magma oceans, are distinctly unlike the planets in our solar system. Lava world – artistic interpretation. Image…
Improving Detection of Gravitational Waves
A Cardiff University undergraduate has collaborated with academics from the US on a project to improve gravitational waves detectors at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) as part of a…
Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1: Insights into Atmosphere and Star
A new study of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 exoplanetary system has demonstrated the complex interaction between the activity of the system’s star and its planetary features. Astronomers led by a team…
