NSF Gives Update on their COVID-19 Response
COVID-19 Coronavirus. CREDIT: Centers for Disease Control NSF Letter to Community Regarding COVID-19 (NSF) Scientists everywhere are now learning how to better use Zoom, Slack, and other digital tools to try and keep the science going. While astronomy and space...
AURA Gives Update on its Telescope Facilities
Kitt Peak Observatory. CREDIT: P. Marenfeld & NOAO/AURA/NSF COVID-19 update on AURA Operations and Facilities (AURA) Well, in this age of COVID-19 how we define essential is taking a very different shape. Essential is no longer “how do we keep our timelines...
NASA Leadership Assessing Mission Impacts of Coronavirus
COVID-19 virus particles. CREDIT: Centers for Disease Control NASA Leadership Assessing Mission Impacts of Coronavirus (NASA) NASA has put out a statement on how their assessing mission impacts. While I’m generally skeptical about putting politicians and businessmen...
The Strange Orbits of “Tatooine” Planet Disks
Two examples of aligned and misaligned protoplanetary disks around binary stars (circumbinary disks), observed with ALMA. Binary star orbits are added for clarity. Left: in star system HD 98800 B, the disk is misaligned with inner binary stars. The stars are orbiting...
Snapping a Space Shot
A 10,000-pixel MKID array made by the Mazin lab for the DARKNESS instrument at the Palomar 200-inch Telescope. CREDIT: Ben Mazin Snapping A Space Shot (UC Santa Barbara) Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara are developing new detectors...
Quasar Tsunamis Rip Across Galaxies
This is an artist's concept of a distant galaxy with an active quasar at its center. A quasar emits exceptionally large amounts of energy generated by a supermassive black hole fueled by in-falling matter. Using the unique capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope,...
Research Team Discovers Path to Razor-Sharp Black Hole Images
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive...
Binary System of Two Brown Dwarfs found by SPECULOOS survey
An artist's view of one of the SPECULOOS telescopes, with the eclipsing binary brown dwarf in the sky. The third red dot is a third nearby brown dwarf, which is also part of the same system. The book on the side shows the data that led to the discovery. On the left...
Variable star pulsates on only one side due to companion red dwarf
An artistic rendering showcases the world's first known one-sided pulsar, which is tidally locked with its companion, a red dwarf. CREDIT: Gabriel Pérez Díaz/IAC New kind of star only pulsates on one side (UPI News) A new star has been identified that is a pulsating...
Slime Mold can map the known Universe
Astronomers have designed a computer algorithm, inspired by slime mold behavior, and tested it against a computer simulation of the growth of dark matter filaments in the Universe. The researchers then applied the slime mold algorithm to data containing the locations...
Join the Crew!
Escape Velocity Space News