Scientists using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope have detected 8 new millisecond pulsars in the hearts of globular clusters.
As the James Webb Space Telescope readies for its launch later this year, we take a look at how this Hubble successor will eclipse its predecessor.
A team of international scientists, led by the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), has proposed a simple and novel method to bring the accuracy of the Hubble constant measurements down to 2% using a single observation of a pair of merging neutron stars.
The universe is in continuous expansion. Because of this, distant objects such as galaxies are moving away from us. In fact, the further away they are, the faster they move. Scientists describe this expansion through a famous number known as the Hubble constant, which tells us how fast objects in the universe recede from us depending on their distance to us. By measuring the Hubble constant in a precise way, we can also determine some of the most fundamental properties of the universe, including its age.
For decades, scientists have measured Hubble’s constant with increasing accuracy, collecting electromagnetic signals emitted throughout the universe but arriving at a challenging result: the two current best measurements give inconsistent results. Since 2015, scientists have tried to tackle this challenge with the science of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time that travel at the speed of light. Gravitational waves are generated in the most violent cosmic events and provide a new channel of information about the universe. They’re emitted during the collision of two neutron stars —the dense cores of collapsed stars —and can help scientists dig deeper into the Hubble constant mystery.
NASA recently ran a ground test for the propulsion system on their Gateway lunar orbiter. It’ll allow the future space station to explore the Moon.
During a brief swing by Venus, NASA ’s Parker Solar Probe detected a natural radio signal that revealed the spacecraft had flown through the planet’s upper atmosphere. This was the first direct measurement of the Venusian atmosphere in nearly 30 years — and it looks quite different from Venus past. A study published today confirms that Venus’ upper atmosphere undergoes puzzling changes over a solar cycle, the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle. This marks the latest clue to untangling how and why Venus and Earth are so different.
Born of similar processes, Earth and Venus are twins: both rocky, and of similar size and structure. But their paths diverged from birth. Venus lacks a magnetic field, and its surface broils at temperatures hot enough to melt lead. At most, spacecraft have only ever survived a couple hours there. Studying Venus, inhospitable as it is, helps scientists understand how these twins have evolved, and what makes Earth-like planets habitable or not.
On July 11, 2020, Parker Solar Probe swung by Venus in its third flyby. Each flyby is designed to leverage the planet’s gravity to fly the spacecraft closer and closer to the Sun. The mission — managed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland — made its closest flyby of Venus yet, passing just 517 miles (833 km) above the surface.
A dynamo mechanism could explain the incredibly strong magnetic fields in white dwarf stars according to an international team of scientists, including a University of Warwick astronomer.
One of the most striking phenomena in astrophysics is the presence of magnetic fields. Like the Earth, stars and stellar remnants such as white dwarfs have one. It is known that the magnetic fields of white dwarfs can be a million times stronger than that of the Earth. However, their origin has been a mystery since the discovery of the first magnetic white dwarf in the 1970s. Several theories have been proposed, but none of them has been able to explain the different occurrence rates of magnetic white dwarfs, both as individual stars and in different binary star environments.
This uncertainty may be resolved thanks to research by an international team of astrophysicists, including Professor Boris Gänsicke from the University of Warwick and led by Professor Dr. Matthias Schreiber from Núcleo Milenio de Formación Planetaria at Universidad Santa María in Chile. The team showed that a dynamo mechanism similar to the one that generates magnetic fields on Earth and other planets can work in white dwarfs, and produce much stronger fields. This research, part-funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Leverhulme Trust, has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Astronomy.
Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have harnessed a technique that helps telescopes see objects in the night sky more clearly to fight against dangerous and costly space debris.
“Adaptive optics is like removing the twinkle from the stars.”
The researchers’ work on adaptive optics — which removes the haziness caused by turbulence in the atmosphere — has been applied to a new ‘guide star’ laser for better identifying, tracking and safely moving space debris.
ALAMEDA, California — Rocket builder Astra wants to simplify the launch business, with the soon-to-be-public company on a quest to both cut manufacturing costs while dramatically increasing the number of launches to a daily rate.
Astra is preparing to go public by the end of June through a merger with SPAC Holicity, in a deal that will infuse as much as $500 million capital into the company. In the meantime, Astra is expanding its headquarters on the San Francisco Bay while the company prepares for its next launch this summer.
A SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, raises capital in an initial public offering and uses the proceeds to buy a private firm and take it public.
The superb skills and sharp mind of a workers, who welded China’s space station core module, guaranteed its successful launch.
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For the first time, scientists have been able to precisely map the flight path of an asteroid that landed on Earth and trace it back to its point of origin. The boulder-size fragment’s journey to our planet began 22 million years ago, according to new research.
The asteroid, known as 2018 LA, appeared like a fireball in the skies over Botswana on June 2, 2018, before breaking apart and landing in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Prior to breaking up in Earth’s atmosphere, scientists determined that the asteroid was about 5 feet (1.7 meters) in diameter, weighed 12566 pounds and had been traveling at 37282 miles per hour.
