Space and astrophysics research made simple
Astronomers have taken a fresh look at an old supernova and found that it was turned inside out during its explosion. Iron, which forms during the stars death, is usually in the centre of the supernova remnant...
To say a picture is worth a thousand words would be selling this one rather short.This edge-on image of the Milky Way contains at least a billion stars.
It looks like the faster-than-light neutrino saga – or should that now be slower-than-light or the-same-speed-as-light? – may nearly be over. On Friday, CERN updated their statement on the initial OPERA result with some new results from ICARUS, another experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy...
Today is International Women's Day. To celebrate, here's a post showcasing just a couple of the many really amazing discoveries made by women in astronomy.
Something unusual has been spotted lurking around several galaxies' central black holes. Astronomers think it may be limiting the growth of the black holes – and stars elsewhere in the galaxies, too.Astronomers studying nearby galaxies have found a new type of outflow called an ultra-fast outflow, or UFO...
The faster-than-light neutrinos seen by the OPERA particle physics experiment last year may have just been explained. By a loose cable. I wish I was joking.To back up a little, the OPERA collaboration based at the Gran Sasso laboratory underneath the mountain of the same name in Italy published a paper to pre-print server arxiv.org last September saying that they had seen neutrinos, a type of sub-atomic particle, travel faster than the speed of light...
Judging by the many flares erupting from the sun at the moment, it is well on track to reach its next peak in activity early next year. As this peak approaches, we can expect many more huge bursts of energy that erupt from the sun and send lots of energetic particles, and sometimes magnetic fields, our way...
Fed up of simply reading about space and want to do some real science? Well, here's your chance: astronomers are asking anyone with a pair of binoculars or telescope to train them on a new object visible in the night sky...
The Sun is hotting up, and we can see the results right here on Earth. Across the northern hemisphere, fantastic light displays have been visible of late, and the frequency of these events is set only to increase as the Sun heads toward a peak in its magnetic activity.In light of this (no pun intended), I decided a post about what is going on during an aurora was in order...
Underneath Titan's dense atmosphere lies something rather unusual, by terrestrial standards. Some features of the Saturnian moon, at first glance, might look similar to some features we have on Earth — it is the only other body in the solar system with lakes, and appears to have an active weather system...
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