Topic: Stars & Nebulae
Don Pettit Proves Stars Can Be Tracked From ISS

Don Pettit Proves Stars Can Be Tracked From ISS

by | Jan 21, 2025 |

Photo taken by Astronaut Don Pettit from ISS: Milky Way with Zodiacal light and Starlink satellites streaking by. Astronaut Don Pettit is, among many other things, an amateur astronomer. One of the most delightful moments of my life with getting to hear him talk to National Geographic photographer Babak Tavarshi about the challenges of trying to image the sky from the International space station and asking to brainstorm solutions. Well, it looks like that conversation, and many more that I assume have also taken place, allowed Don to figure out how to get past some of the issues he was...

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Closer Look: We are Space Stuff

Closer Look: We are Space Stuff

by | Feb 28, 2024 |

Courtesy TeePublic It is possible to buy stickers, sweatshirts, mugs, and all manner of other stuff and things emblazoned with the simple phrase, “We are star stuff”. Carl Sagan popularized this phrase, and it serves as a gentle reminder that all the complex atoms -...

Neutron Stars Have Quarky Cores

Neutron Stars Have Quarky Cores

by | Dec 27, 2023 |

Artist’s impression of the different layers inside a massive neutron star, with the red circle representing a sizable quark-matter core. Credit: Jyrki Hokkanen, CSC Ok, hold onto your brains; things are about to get dense around here. Our universe’s most massive stars...

Finding the Source of Low-Hydrogen Supernovae

Finding the Source of Low-Hydrogen Supernovae

by | Dec 20, 2023 |

Visualization of a binary star experiencing mass transfer. Credit: Ylva Götberg One factor upping the difficulty of understanding our universe is… the complexity of our universe. It sometimes feels like every time we think we’re getting a handle on how things work,...

500,000 Stars, with More Born Regularly

500,000 Stars, with More Born Regularly

by | Dec 6, 2023 |

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and S. Crowe (University of Virginia) Our Solar System lives in a nice suburb of the Milky Way. Sitting about 25,000 light years from the galactic center, we’re in a good place to view what’s happening in the core district, but far...