Space
When a star comes too close to a black hole, the intense gravity of the black hole results in tidal forces that can rip the star apart. In these events, called tidal disruptions, some of the stellar debris is flung outward at high speeds, while the rest falls toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare that can last for years.
A team of astronomers has observed a tidal disruption event in a galaxy that lies about 290 million light years from Earth, the closest tidal disruption discovered in about a decade.
"These results support some of our newest ideas for the structure and…
There is a very little reason to
think that a Dyson sphere or Dyson swarm may have been sighted in orbit of star KIC 8462852 . Whatever it is be it natural or of intelligent design it is big enough
to dim the star’s light by 22%, and is not orbiting periodically. In the case
of a Dyson Sphere or Dyson swarm this would indicate mega structures
independently orbiting the star and eclipsing it along our line of sight. They
are on record as stating that their Allen Telescope Array ought not be able to detect
an intelligent signal at that distance.
I embed this clip from Star…
This is a particularly silly story about Nibiru, published today (in the Daily Telegraph): The end of the world now predicted for December say doomsday groups: "Terrifying stuff. Apparently, the planet due to collide with us is often visible, you may have seen it already. If you spot a blob next to the sun when you take a photograph, it could be the deadly planet, not a reflection."
It is not written entirely seriously in tone I think. Still humour is easy for some readers to miss in print, and some people take all of this very seriously. So I thought I'd do a short debunking article, to…
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have produced new maps of Jupiter -- the first in a series of annual portraits of the solar system's outer planets.
Collecting these yearly images -- essentially the planetary version of annual school picture days for children -- will help current and future scientists see how these giant worlds change over time. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry.
Already, the Jupiter images have revealed a rare wave just north of the planet's equator and a unique…
Much like the flapping of a windsock displays the quick changes in wind's speed and direction, called turbulence, comet tails can be used as probes of the solar wind - the constant flowing stream of material that leaves the sun in all directions.
According to new studies of a comet tail observed by NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, the vacuum of interplanetary space is filled with turbulence and swirling vortices similar to gusts of wind on Earth. Such turbulence can help explain two of the wind's most curious features: its variable nature and unexpectedly high…
If there were humans on the Moon - would we see the settlement lights from the Earth? For instance during a thin crescent Moon - could we see the lights of civilization in the parts of the Moon in darkness?
It's a fun question to answer I think, so let's give it a go.
We can work it out backwards from the brightness of the full Moon.
Looking out on the lunar surface from inside a Moon city, frame from the 1965 Russian film Luna
(You can get this article as a kindle ebook)
AREA OF MOON NEAR SIDE NEEDED FOR SAME ILLUMINATION AS SIXTH MAGNITUDE STAR
First the Moon is –12.92 in …
Astronomers have long turned their telescopes, be they on satellites in space or observatories on Earth, to the wide swaths of interstellar medium to get a look at the formation and birth of stars. However, the images produced over the last 50 years look more like weather maps showing storm systems instead of glittering bursts of light that the untrained observer might expect of a "star map."
Until now.
Led by University of Florida astronomer Peter Barnes and Erik Muller at the National Astronomy Observatory of Japan, a team of international researchers has just released the most…
We have heard the Mars exploration mantra for more than a decade: follow the water. In a new paper published October 9, 2015, in the journal Science, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team presents recent results of its quest to not just follow the water but to understand where it came from, and how long it lasted on the surface of Mars so long ago.
The story that has unfolded is a wet one: Mars appears to have had a more massive atmosphere billions of years ago than it does today, with an active hydrosphere capable of storing water in long-lived lakes. The MSL team has concluded that this…
During the morning of last Monday (28th September) in Europe and Africa, or the evening of the 27th in the Americas, we were treated to the spectacle of a total eclipse of the Moon, a so-called ‘supermoon’ because the Moon appeared a little larger than usual near its perigee, the point closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit. With the help of the British magazine Astronomy Now, helpful because along the with Daily Mail it was one of the few sources that gave the event timings in British time correctly, I set out to photograph it.
With the song If it Wasn’t for the Houses in Between…
Now we know, it's the second of those "Three mysteries" which they solved - by detection of water in the RSLs. However, they didn't directly detect flowing water. Instead, they found hydrated salts. So let's look at this a bit more closely - why are they so confident this is evidence for flowing water? And what next - is there any way to follow it up, and what about the other mysteries?
So, first things first, why they are so confident this means flowing water? Well it's partly because the slopes only flow in spring through to autumn, when the temperatures are high…