From NASA: At 6:07 a.m. EDT on Aug. 20, 2018, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe successfully completed its first trajectory correction maneuver (known as TCM-1), achieving a near-perfect firing of its propulsion system and putting the spacecraft on course to “touch” the Sun. This maneuver sets up the orbital geometry that will allow Parker Solar Probe Read More
Category: Astrophysics
Astronomers Confirm Orbital Details of TRAPPIST-1’s Least Understood Planet
cientists using NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope identified a regular pattern in the orbits of the planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system that confirmed suspected details about the orbit of its outermost and least understood planet, TRAPPIST-1h. TRAPPIST-1 is only eight percent the mass of our sun, making it a cooler and less luminous star. It’s home Read More
Experiment Closed
Today, 01 Feb 2017, we concluded the Wow! Signal Experiment. The data was analyzed and summarized in a 16 page paper, which has been submitted to the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences for peer-review. We expect our findings to be publishes late Spring 2017.
Wow! Experiment In Process
Today we directed our 10m telescope toward 266P. Data collection will continue for 14 days. Initial results will be analyzed and, if required, a synopsis will be published.
X-ray Telescopes Find Evidence for Wandering Black Hole
Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory to discover an extremely luminous, variable X-ray source located outside the center of its parent galaxy. This peculiar object could be a wandering black hole that came from a small galaxy falling into a larger one. Astronomers think that supermassive black holes, with Read More
Studies Find Echoes of Black Holes Eating Stars
Supermassive black holes, with their immense gravitational pull, are notoriously good at clearing out their immediate surroundings by eating nearby objects. When a star passes within a certain distance of a black hole, the stellar material gets stretched and compressed — or “spaghettified” — as the black hole swallows it. A black hole destroying a Read More
Hubble Reveals Observable Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought
The universe suddenly looks a lot more crowded, thanks to a deep-sky census assembled from surveys taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. Astronomers came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought. The results have clear implications for galaxy formation, Read More
Young Magnetar Likely the Slowest Pulsar Ever Detected
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray observatories, astronomers have found evidence for what is likely one of the most extreme pulsars, or rotating neutron stars, ever detected. The source exhibits properties of a highly magnetized neutron star, or magnetar, yet its deduced spin period is thousands of times longer than any pulsar ever Read More
Hubble Sees a Legion of Galaxies
Peering deep into the early universe, this picturesque parallel field observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals thousands of colorful galaxies swimming in the inky blackness of space. A few foreground stars from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, are also visible. In October 2013 Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera Read More