Category Astronomy/Space

Researchers at the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India at IISER Kolkata have discovered a new relationship between the Sun’s magnetic field and its sunspot cycle, that can help predict when the peak in solar activity will occur. Their work indicates that the maximum intensity of solar cycle 25, the ongoing sunspot cycle, is imminent and likely to occur within a year. The new research appears in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

Our star, the Sun, is made up of hot ionized gas known as plasma.

Huge plasma flows and convection conspire toge...

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) researchers have discovered solar-wind hydrogen in lunar samples, which indicates that water on the surface of the Moon may provide a vital resource for future lunar bases and longer-range space exploration. Space-based resource identification is a key factor in planning for civilian- and government-led space exploration.

“Hydrogen has the potential to be a resource that can be used directly on the lunar surface when there are more regular or permanent installations there,” said Dr. Katherine D. Burgess, geologist in NRL’s Materials Science and Technology Division.

“Locating resources and understanding how to collect them prior to getting to the Moon is going to be incredibly valuable for space exploration.”

The Apollo lunar soil samples w...

Astronomers have discovered a new stellar system in the outskirts of the Milky Way as part of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). The newfound system, named Sextans II, is most likely an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy. The finding is reported in a paper published November 10 on the pre-print server arXiv.

KiDS is an extensive multi-band photometric survey utilizing the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. Since 2011, the survey has been mapping 1,350 square degrees of the night sky in four broad-band filters (u, g, r, i)...

Our own Milky Way galaxy is part of a much larger formation, the local Supercluster structure, which contains several massive galaxy clusters and thousands of individual galaxies. Due to its pancake-like shape, which measures almost a billion light years across, it is also referred to as the Supergalactic Plane.

Most galaxies in the universe fall into one of two categories: firstly, elliptical galaxies, made mostly of old stars and containing typically extremel...