Category Astronomy/Space

The star in its short-lived, unstable, very hot, blue supergiant phase. Credit: CAASTRO/Mats Björklund (Magipics)

Astronomers have managed to peer into the past of a nearby star millions of years before its famous explosion, using a telescope in remote outback Australia at a site free from FM radio interference. Research by an international team including astronomers at the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) observing the region at the lowest-ever radio frequencies has helped fine-tune our understanding of stellar explosions.

The research paints a picture of the star’s life long before its death in what was the closest and brightest supernova seen from Earth, now known as supernova remnant 1987A, which collapsed spectacularly almost 30 years ago...

An artist’s impression of the implied distribution of young stars, represented here by Cepheids shown as blue stars, plotted on the background of a drawing of the Milky Way. With the exception of a small clump in the Galactic center, the central 8,000 light years appear to have very few Cepheids, and hence very few young stars. Credit: The University of Tokyo

A major revision is required in our understanding of our Milky Way Galaxy according to an international team led by Prof Noriyuki Matsunaga of the University of Tokyo. The Japanese, South African and Italian astronomers find that there is a huge region around the centre of our own Galaxy, which is devoid of young stars...

Spectroscopic searches for biosignatures in the atmospheres of transiting Earth-mass planets around low mass stars will determine whether present-day life is indeed premature or typical from a cosmic perspective.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life on other planets could be billions of years older than ours. However, new theoretical work suggests that present-day life is actually premature from a cosmic perspective. “If you ask, ‘When is life most likely to emerge?’ you might naively say, ‘Now,'” says Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “But we find that the chance of life grows much higher in the distant future.”

Life as we know it first became possible ab...

How to spot Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn etc and the annual Perseid meteor shower. Tonight, notice the 2 outer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper – Dubhe and Merak. They always point to Polaris, the North Star. To find the Dipper at this time of year, look toward the NW in the evening. Once you’ve found it – after locating Polaris – look more carefully at the second star from the end of the Big Dipper’s handle. If your sky is dark enough, and your eyesight is good, you’ll see that this star, Mizar, has a nearby companion, called Alcor.

Arabian stargazers referred to Mizar and Alcor as the “horse and rider.” These stars are a good test of the night’s viewing conditions: if you can’t see Alcor, there might be thin clouds up there.

These two stars are what’s ...