The powerful eye of the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted vital chemicals around two youthful stars. Astronomers focused the space observatory, which orbits 1 million miles from Earth, on cosmic regions around these protostars, which are so youthful they haven’t yet formed planets. But they almost certainly will: NASA suspects nearly every star has … Read more
In our solar system’s proverbial “no man’s land,” a deep space realm beyond the planets, scientists detected unexpected activity. This remote area, inhabited by ice-clad worlds like Pluto (a dwarf planet), is called the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region surrounding much of our solar system. It’s a relatively little known place, but millions of frozen, … Read more
The powerful James Webb Space Telescope has solved another cosmic mystery. Astronomers can see a type of light emitted billions of years ago from some of the earliest galaxies, yet many scientists don’t think this light should be visible. That’s because, at a crucial time in the universe’s history — a time called “reionization” when … Read more
Scientists have discovered a world that is almost identical in size to Earth, with a star almost identical to our sun. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The exoplanet, a world outside our solar system, is 10 times younger, exponentially hotter, and likely half-soaked in molten lava seas. Astronomers found the new planet, … Read more
The winter nights may be long, but they don’t have to be dull, even for folks with small apartments who don’t have room for an extra big telescope. Unistellar’s latest telescope, the Odyssey, is half the size and less than half the weight of the company’s last big release from 2023. However, with a few … Read more
Space is awfully psychedelic. There are objects in the universe so massive — often clusters of galaxies — that they warp space, like a bowling ball sitting on a mattress. This creates a curved cosmic lens. “Light follows that bend instead of traveling in a straight line, distorting and brightening what’s behind the object,” NASA … Read more
The Einstein Probe, an X-ray telescope managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, will be ready to launch next month. The probe will look for transient events in X-ray light and try to answer some fundamental questions about black holes and gravitational waves. Gizmodo’s Top Five Gadgets of 2023 Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and Webb. Undoubtedly … Read more
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NASA is preparing to begin an experiment named GUSTO — short for Galactic / Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory — to gather data that will be used to create a 3D map of a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy. The GUSTO experiment involves a telescope that will float 120,000 feet over Antarctica on a … Read more
The Hubble Space Telescope just ogled an exoplanet passing in front of a star in a triple system, revealing the nearby world’s mass. Webb Telescope Images the Pillars of Creation The world is named LTT 1445Ac, and it was discovered in 2022 by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The world orbits a red dwarf … Read more
Exoplanets pushing their atmospheres away may explain a gap in exoplanet masses, according to a team of researchers that recently studied data from NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope. What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It? The activity could explain an absence of exoplanets with masses between 1.5 to 2 times the size … Read more