Category: astronomy
Watch a mile-long asteroid sling past the Earth tonight at 7 PM ET
An asteroid will hit Earth — it’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” Fortunately, the space rock known as 1998 OR2 won’t be crashing your quarantine party, but it’s still considered a potentially hazardous object since it will come within four million… Source
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SpaceX will make its Starlink satellites less of a blight on the night sky
On April 22nd, SpaceX launched its eighth payload of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. Shortly thereafter, the satellites could be seen from the ground, appearing to be dots of light traversing the night sky. According to Elon Musk, the compa… Source
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Scientists find an Earth-like planet hiding in old Kepler data
The search for habitable exoplanets has made a discovery in an unexpected place: data that had supposedly been searched years ago. Scientists combing over early data from the Kepler space telescope have found an Earth-like planet, Kepler-1649c, burie… Source
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New Earth-sized planet found in habitable sweet-spot orbit around a distant star
Researchers have discovered a new Earth-sized planet orbiting a star outside our solar system. The planet, called Kepler-1649c, is only around 1.06 times larger than Earth, making it very similar to our own planet in terms of physical dimensions. It’s also quite close to its star, orbiting at a distance…
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Scientists visualize a black hole plasma jet in unprecedented detail
At the center of most galaxies is a supermassive black hole. While many aspects of these objects remain mysterious, it’s clear that they gobble up immense amounts of energy and matter. This forms an accretion disc of plasma, but sometimes that plasma… Source
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NASA finds real uses for VR and AR in astronomy and engineering
Years after the advent of decent VR hardware, there are still precious few ways the technology has been employed as anything other than a game or gimmick. One team at NASA, however, has been assembling useful science and engineering applications, with promising and unique results. Studying the astronomical number of…
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