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Category: Astronomy

Back to New Jersey, where the universe began

Back to New Jersey, where the universe began

Dennis Overbye writes: On a field just below the summit of Crawford Hill, the highest point in Monmouth County, N.J., almost within sight of the skyscrapers of Manhattan, sits a cluster of shacks and sheds. Next to them is the Holmdel Horn Antenna, a radio telescope somewhat resembling the scoop of a giant steam shovel: an aluminum box 20 feet square at the mouth and tapering to an eight-inch opening, through which the radio waves are funneled into the “cab,”…

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Will the universe ever stop expanding?

Will the universe ever stop expanding?

Sarah Scoles writes: From Earth, the night sky looks fairly static. Sure, the stars rotate from evening to evening, and the planets move among them. But from a terrestrial perspective, the celestial sphere appears essentially unchanging. Perception, though, is not reality: our eyeballs don’t hint that beyond nearby planets, stars and galaxies, everything is moving away from us. The universe is constantly expanding—at an ever faster rate. “When we say that the universe is expanding, we mean something pretty literal,”…

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Is there a crisis in cosmology?

Is there a crisis in cosmology?

Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser write: Not long after the James Webb Space Telescope began beaming back from outer space its stunning images of planets and nebulae last year, astronomers, though dazzled, had to admit that something was amiss. Eight months later, based in part on what the telescope has revealed, it’s beginning to look as if we may need to rethink key features of the origin and development of the universe. Launched at the end of 2021 as a…

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JWST spots giant black holes all over the early universe

JWST spots giant black holes all over the early universe

Charlie Wood writes: Years before she was even sure the James Webb Space Telescope would successfully launch, Christina Eilers started planning a conference for astronomers specializing in the early universe. She knew that if — preferably, when — JWST started making observations, she and her colleagues would have a lot to talk about. Like a time machine, the telescope could see farther away and farther into the past than any previous instrument. Fortunately for Eilers (and the rest of the…

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Have astronomers finally found a meteorite from outside the solar system?

Have astronomers finally found a meteorite from outside the solar system?

Astronomy reports: After an expedition that spent about 10 days scouring the ocean floor off Papua New Guinea with a magnetic sled, Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb says he has collected more than 700 metallic spherules that are now undergoing detailed examination in his lab at Harvard as well as at least two other independent labs that he asked to help out. Loeb believes that many of these spherules, each less than a millimeter across (about the size of a…

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New finding boosts Panspermia, the theory that life on Earth originated in deep space

New finding boosts Panspermia, the theory that life on Earth originated in deep space

Lina Zeldovich writes: Floating in the middle of our galaxy, near the center of the Milky Way, inside a cloud of gas that swirls at the temperature of 100 Kelvin or -279.67 Fahrenheit, a molecule essential to life on Earth has just been discovered. It sounds inconceivable that such a level of cosmic cold could harbor anything remotely related to a living organism—and yet it does. In fact, without this molecule, humans—and all other breathing, growing things on the planet—would…

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James Webb Space Telescope prompts a rethink of how galaxies form

James Webb Space Telescope prompts a rethink of how galaxies form

Adam Mann writes: Katherine Whitaker was on a video call with colleagues last summer when NASA released the first pictures from the ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Among the many awe-inspiring images was one of a sliver of sky surrounding the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723: It was brimming with some of the oldest and most distant galaxies ever recorded. “We would zoom in and be like, ‘Oh wow,’ and ‘What the heck is that?’” recalls Whitaker, an astronomer at…

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A year of cosmic wonder with the James Webb Space Telescope

A year of cosmic wonder with the James Webb Space Telescope

The New York Times reports: By now, perhaps, we should be getting used to unreal images of the cosmos made with the James Webb Space Telescope. But a year after NASA released the cosmic observatory’s first imagery, the space agency has dropped yet another breathtaking snapshot of our universe. Wednesday’s image was Rho Ophiuchi, the closest nursery of infant stars in our cosmic backyard. Located a mere 390 light years away from Earth, this cloud complex is chock-full of stellar…

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The dark universe is waiting. What will the Euclid telescope reveal?

The dark universe is waiting. What will the Euclid telescope reveal?

The New York Times reports: At 11:12 a.m. on Saturday, the Euclid spacecraft launched into space on its mission to chart the history of our universe as far back as 10 billion years ago. The space telescope, built by the European Space Agency, will use its instruments to record more than a third of the extragalactic sky over the next six years, creating the most accurate three-dimensional map of the cosmos to date. Researchers plan to use Euclid’s map to…

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Neutrinos build a ghostly map of the Milky Way

Neutrinos build a ghostly map of the Milky Way

The New York Times reports: From ghostlike particles, astrophysicists have pieced together a new map of the galaxy we live in. For now, that map of the Milky Way is blurry and incomplete. But as more data is gathered, it will become clearer and will help illuminate galactic convulsions like the expanding remnants of exploded stars, providing clues to mysteries that are difficult to solve with only observations from conventional telescopes. “This is the first time we’ve seen our own…

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Scientists thrill at first hints of cosmic ‘hum’ from giant gravitational waves

Scientists thrill at first hints of cosmic ‘hum’ from giant gravitational waves

Scientific American reports: After nearly two decades of listening, astronomers are finally starting to “hear” the rumbles of gravitational waves they believe emanate from the behemoths of our universe: supermassive black holes. The result comes from a National Science Foundation–sponsored initiative known as the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). Since 2004 NANOGrav has monitored metronomelike flashes of light from a Milky Way–spanning network of dead stars known as pulsars. Forged from the hearts of exploding massive stars,…

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Radical new theory gives a very different perspective on what life is

Radical new theory gives a very different perspective on what life is

Science Alert reports: Biologists usually define ‘life’ as an entity that reproduces, responds to its environment, metabolizes chemicals, consumes energy, and grows. Under this model, ‘life’ is a binary state; something is either alive or not. This definition works reasonably well on planet Earth, with viruses being one notable exception. But if life is elsewhere in the universe, it may not be made of the same stuff as us. It might not look, move, or communicate like we do. How,…

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This alien ocean is the first known to have all elements crucial for life

This alien ocean is the first known to have all elements crucial for life

The Washington Post reports: Saturn’s moon Enceladus has enticed scientists for years with its plumes fizzing their way up from an ocean beneath a thick crust of ice. Now there’s a new element to the story, literally: That cold, dark ocean appears to contain a form of phosphorus, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. That means Enceladus has the only ocean beyond Earth known to contain all six elements needed for life. The claimed discovery of dissolved…

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Where Earth got its water

Where Earth got its water

Sean Raymond writes: When Carl Sagan famously called Earth the “pale blue dot,” he was judging a book by its cover. Even though three quarters of our planet’s surface is covered by oceans, our planet is actually very dry. Water makes up about one part in a thousand of Earth’s mass (most of it is simply rock and iron). I say “about” because we don’t know exactly how much water is trapped in Earth’s interior. Estimates range from less than…

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Weird black holes may hold secrets of the early universe

Weird black holes may hold secrets of the early universe

Ashley Yeager writes: Our galaxy’s heart is a gluttonous monster. Like the mythical Kammapa of the Sotho people of southern Africa, the Milky Way’s central, supermassive black hole has swallowed nearly everything around it, growing heftier and heftier the more it eats. And it’s not alone. Black holes weighing as much as thousands, millions or even billions of suns sit at the center of nearly all known massive galaxies. For decades, scientists thought that was the only place they’d find…

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Stars could be invisible within 20 years as light pollution brightens night skies

Stars could be invisible within 20 years as light pollution brightens night skies

Robin McKie writes: The Herefordshire hills basked in brilliant sunshine last weekend. Summer had arrived and the skies were cloudless, conditions that would once have heralded succeeding nights of coal-dark heavens sprinkled with brilliant stars, meteorites and planets. It was not to be. The night sky was not so much black as dark grey with only a handful of stars glimmering against this backdrop. The Milky Way – which would once have glittered across the heavens – was absent. Summer’s…

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