Comets are ancient cosmic icebergs. They are roughly 4.6 billion years old and formed at the same time as the Sun, Earth and the other planets. Gravitational interactions fling them towards…
Category: Space
Fast Radio Bursts – Technology Org
No one knows what causes them, but they may help us map the universe down to its furthest reaches fast radio bursts. Bright flashes travelling across galaxies, their origins shrouded…
Tiniest ‘starquakes’ ever detected
Artist ‘s impression of sound waves (p modes), with different frequencies, traveling across the inner layers of a star. Credit: Tania Cunha (Planetário do Porto—Centro Ciência Viva)/Instituto de Astrofísica e…
Signs of life detectable in single ice grain emitted from extraterrestrial moons
The ice-encrusted oceans of some of the moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter are leading candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life. A new lab-based study led by the University of…
Planet cannibalism is common, says cosmic ‘twin study’
Credit: Intouchable / Openverse How stable are planetary systems? Will Earth and its seven siblings always continue in their steady celestial paths, or might we one day be randomly ejected…
Dark matter may form exploding stars, and observing the damage could help reveal what it’s made of
Dark matter is a ghostly substance that astronomers have failed to detect for decades, yet which we know has an enormous influence on normal matter in the universe, such as…
Astronomers find evidence that blue supergiant stars can be formed by the merger of two stars
Artistic image of a binary system of a red giant star and a younger companion that can merge to produce a blue supergiant. Credit: Casey Reed, NASA An international piece…
Heat to blame for space pebble demise
This meteoroid broke up by thermal stresses just before entering Earth’s atmosphere, creating a cluster of meteors over Norway on October 30, 2022, recorded by Allsky7 station AMS119 operated by…
Citizen Scientist Group Finds 15 Rare ‘Active Asteroids’
Not all asteroids are alike. Some of them, known as “active” asteroids, sport comet-like tails of gas and dust. Studying active asteroids could reveal clues to how the solar system…
