Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    Uranus’s Swaying Moons will help Spacecraft Seek Out Hidden Oceans

    November 26, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Ariel, Uranus’s fourth largest moon, is thought to be made of equal parts rock and ice. A new computer model developed at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics could be used to detect liquid water oceans beneath Ariel’s icy surface. Credit: NASA

    A new computer model can be used to detect and measure interior oceans on the ice covered moons of Uranus. The model works by analyzing orbital wobbles that would be visible from a passing spacecraft. The research gives engineers and scientists a slide-rule to help them design NASA’s upcoming Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission.

    When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons...

    Read More

    The Dark Energy Pushing our Universe Apart may not be what it seems, scientists say

    November 25, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The dark energy pushing our universe apart may not be what it seems, scientists say
    This Dec. 14, 2023 image made available by NOIRLab shows meteors from the Geminid meteor shower streaking across the sky above the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, in Tucson, Ariz. Credit: NSF’s NOIRLab via AP

    Distant, ancient galaxies are giving scientists more hints that a mysterious force called dark energy may not be what they thought.

    Astronomers know that the universe is being pushed apart at an accelerating rate and they have puzzled for decades over what could possibly be speeding everything up. They theorize that a powerful, constant force is at play, one that fits nicely with the main mathematical model that describes how the universe behaves...

    Read More

    Introducing ‘UFO’ Galaxies—the Milky Way’s Dustier Cousins

    November 23, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Introducing 'UFO' galaxies—the Milky Way's dustier cousins
    Images of the same regions of space as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This bright-red UFO galaxy, circled, was almost entirely invisible in the Hubble observations. Credit: Gibson et al, 2024, The Astrophysical Journal
    Images of the same region of space as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This bright-red UFO galaxy, circled, was almost entirely invisible in the Hubble observations. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)

    In a new study, a team of astrophysicists led by CU Boulder has set out to unravel the mysteries of UFOs—not the alien spacecraft, but a class of unusually large and red galaxies that researchers have nicknamed Ultra-red Flattened Objects, or UFOs for short...

    Read More

    Chandra and Hubble Tune into ‘Flame-Throwing’ Guitar Nebula

    November 22, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A close-up image of the guitar structure with an illustrated outline surrounding the shape.
    Outline of the guitar shape in the X-ray and optical image. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI and (Palomar) Hale Telescope/Palomar/CalTech; Illustrated outline: NASA/CXC/K. DiVona; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare)

    Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.

    The new movie of Chandra (red) and Palomar (blue) data helps break down what is playing out in the Guitar Nebula...

    Read More