Category Astronomy/Space

An infographic describing three theories on how the Earth got its iron signature.Designed by Laura Martin/The University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences. Images 1 and 2 from NASA/JPL-Caltech, Image 3 from X-Science, Earth from NASA/JPL.

New research from The University of Texas at Austin reveals that the Earth’s unique iron composition isn’t linked to the formation of the planet’s core, calling into question a prevailing theory about the events that shaped our planet during its earliest years.The research, opens the door for other competing theories about why the Earth, relative to other planets, has higher levels of heavy iron isotopes...

NGC 5907 X-1: record-breaking pulsar

ESA’s XMM-Newton has found a pulsar the spinning remains of a once-massive star that is a 1000X brighter than previously thought possible. The pulsar is also the most distant of its kind ever detected, with its light travelling 50 million light-years before being detected by XMM-Newton. Pulsars are spinning, magnetised neutron stars that sweep regular pulses of radiation in two symmetrical beams across the cosmos. If suitably aligned with Earth these beams are like a lighthouse beacon appearing to flash on and off as it rotates. They were once massive stars that exploded as a powerful supernova at the end of their natural life, before becoming small and extraordinarily dense stellar corpses.
This X-ray source is the most luminous of its type detected to...

(a) Open-shutter photograph of fireball EN09121418 taken by Dr. Spurny (coauthor) at the Czech Fireball Network. (b) Intensity at a slant distance of 100 km for fireball EN091214 from Dr. Spurny. The CFN radiometers have flat response below 5 kHz. Intensity curves from different fireballs are in supplementary section. (c) Fourier transform of intensity-time history along with the normalized gain of the human ear for reference.

When a meteor is about to conk your neighborhood and gives fair warning by emitting sizzling, rustling and hissing sounds as it descends, you might think that the universe is being sporting...

Sagittarius A*. This image was taken with NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Credit: Public domain

A team of researchers from around the world is getting ready to create what might be the first image of a black hole. The project is the result of collaboration between teams manning radio receivers around the world and a team at MIT that will assemble the data from the other teams and hopefully create an image. The project has been ongoing for ~20 years as members have sought to piece together the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

Each of the 12 participating radio receiving teams will use equipment that has been installed for the project to record data received at a wavelength of 230GHz during April 5 through the 14th...