Category Astronomy/Space

Chandra’s X-ray data (blue) have been combined with radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (red) in this new composite image. The labeled image shows the location of the supermassive black hole, the jet and the counterjet. Also labeled is a “radio lobe” where the jet is pushing into surrounding gas and a “hotspot” caused by shock waves – akin to sonic booms from a supersonic aircraft – near the tip of the jet.

Star Wars featured the “Death Star,” which can shoot powerful beams of radiation across space. The Universe, however, produces phenomena that often surpass what science fiction can conjure. The Pictor A galaxy lies 500 million light years from Earth with a supermassive black hole at its center...

The red line show the approximate path traced by the field of view of the telescope during observations. The coordinate of Saturn at the time of it’s passing is shown on top left corner. Credit: Pranshu Mandal et al., 2016.

A team of undergraduates from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) at the College of Engineering in Trivandrum, India, has designed and constructed a portable college-level radio telescope for amateur radio astronomers. The students have developed a radio telescope and also data analysis tools that are affordable for schools and colleges, combining low cost and ubiquitous accessibility of resources needed to build these instruments.

“The telescope is dedicated to amateur radio astronomers ranging from high school students to college graduates...

One of the CRESST detector modules. When illuminated with ultraviolet light, the scintillating inner shield glows brightly.

Highest sensitivity detector ever for very light dark matter elementary particles. The origin of matter in the universe has puzzled physicists for generations. Today, we know that matter only accounts for 5% of our universe; another 25% is constituted of dark matter. And the remaining 70% is made up of dark energy. Dark matter itself represents an unsolved riddle.

Physicists believe that such dark matter is composed of (as yet undefined) elementary particles that stick together thanks to gravitational force. In a study recently published in EPJ C, scientists from the CRESST-II research project use the phonon-light technique to detect dark matter...

This Jan. 19, 2016, self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at “Namib Dune,” where the rover’s activities included scuffing into the dune with a wheel and scooping samples of sand for laboratory analysis. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The new selfie combines 57 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of Curiosity’s arm on Jan. 19. The rover has been investigating a group of active sand dunes for 2 months, studying how the wind moves and sorts sand particles on Mars. The site is part of Bagnold Dune Field, which lines the northwestern flank of Mars’ Mount Sharp.

When the component images were taken, the rover had scuffed the edge of “Namib Dune” and collected the first of 3 scoops of sand from that dune...