Topic: Pamela Gay
2024 PT: That’s No Moon – That’s a Piece of a Moon!

2024 PT: That’s No Moon – That’s a Piece of a Moon!

Asteroid 2024 PT5's orbit around the Sun (image credit: NASA) Understanding our world and the universe beyond requires a lot of observation to be combined with a lot of knowledge and amazing creativity. Last year, a potentially hazardous object, cataloged as 2024 PT5, was discovered on an Earth-crossing orbit. While it didn’t remain above zero on the Torino Scale for very long, it certainly caught the eye of planetary scientists who were intrigued by its orbit that kept bringing it near Earth on lingering passes. Classified as a quasi-mini-moon, it has an appearance that twins our OG Moon in...

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Janus: White Dwarf Edition

Janus: White Dwarf Edition

The results of science are often weirder than anything humans can imagine. As researchers, we dedicate our lives to taking data and knowing that whatever we may want to believe, we have to accept the reality of what our data shows us.  And sometimes the data is...

A new kind of star is discovered

A new kind of star is discovered

An artist’s impression of the ultra-long period magnetar—a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy. Credit: ICRAR. The more we look at the universe, the more we’ll be able to find rare and wonderful things. In...

Dark “Stars” or galaxies?

Dark “Stars” or galaxies?

JWST initially identified these three objects (JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0 and JADES-GS-z11-0) as galaxies in December 2022. Now a team suggests they might be “dark stars,” theoretical objects powered by particles of dark matter annihilating. Credit: NASA/ESA We...

(Big-)Moonless worlds have unstable tilts

(Big-)Moonless worlds have unstable tilts

Modern-day Mars experiences cyclical changes in climate and, consequently, ice distribution. Unlike Earth, the obliquity (or tilt) of Mars changes substantially on timescales of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. At present day obliquity of about 25-degree...

Perseverance collects a River of Science

Perseverance collects a River of Science

Jezero Crater as Seen by ESA's Mars Express Orbiter: This image shows the remains of an ancient delta in Mars' Jezero Crater, which NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will explore for signs of fossilized microbial life. Credit: NASA The remnants of ancient dunes aren’t...

How Rivers Flow: Here, Mars & Titan

How Rivers Flow: Here, Mars & Titan

This false-color image shows Titan’s second-largest body of liquid, Ligeia Mare, in the moon’s northern hemisphere. Scientists think that rivers flowing into large bodies of liquids like this one should form deltas. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell New research...

Found: Stars blowing donuts in early universe

Found: Stars blowing donuts in early universe

Left: Dust is shown in red, oxygen in green, and starlight (from HST) in blue. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Y. Tamura et al., NASA/ESA HST). right: ALMA shows just dust emissions, including a vertically elongated elliptical cavity- a possible super bubble. Credit:...

Found: Galaxies lining up in early universe

Found: Galaxies lining up in early universe

This deep galaxy field from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera shows an arrangement of 10 distant galaxies (white circles) in a diagonal. NASA, ESA, CSA, Feige Wang/University of Arizona and Joseph DePasquale/STScI Currently, a lot of the research we see coming from JWST is...

Found: Time slows with distance

Found: Time slows with distance

Before we go to break, I want to highlight one more piece of news. In a new paper in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers Geraint Lewis and Brendon Brewer show evidence for time appearing to tick slower in the early universe. According to relativity, as our...