When you look up at the stars, what do you think about? That we may be not be alone? The vastness of it all?
There’s a lot to wonder about space. The fact is we don’t know all the answers about it. We know it’s vast and beautiful, but we’re not reall…
Category: Stars
A super-Earth orbits a famous star not far from our sun
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Since the 1960s, scientists and exoplanet hunters have searched for evidence of planets orbiting one particular star. It’s called Barnard’s star and it’s only six light-years from our sun — a stone’s throw in a cosmic sense.
Now, an international team of astronomers has managed to discover a possible planet, known as a super-Earth, orbiting the star.
Published in the journal Nature this week, the discovery was made by a team at Hawaii’s W. M. Keck Observatory, using, among other instruments, the observatory’s High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES).
Artist’s impression of Barnard’s star planet under the orange tinted light from the star.
Image: IEEC/SCIENCE-WAVE, GUILLEM RAMISA Read more…
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View More A super-Earth orbits a famous star not far from our sunBlack hole eats and destroys hapless star which wandered too close
Beware of the hungry black hole.
Astronomers tracked a supermassive black hole, 20 million times larger than the sun, which ate up and destroyed a star that came too close.
SEE ALSO: Three baby planets hanging around a star discovered by astronomers
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Could planets orbiting Alpha Centauri harbor life? NASA findings suggest it’s possible
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It looks like our next door stellar neighbors might not be so bad for life after all.
NASA’s Chandra space telescope has revealed that any planets circling Alpha Centauri, which is located about 4 light-years from Earth, could be a more friendly place for life than we initially thought.
Scientists have always held Alpha Centauri is one of our best chances for finding life beyond the solar system, but the three-star system was believed to be so inundated with harmful X-ray radiation that hopes for habitability around any yet-to-be-found planets were dim.
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View More Could planets orbiting Alpha Centauri harbor life? NASA findings suggest it’s possibleCouple maps mesmerizing fiber optic star ceiling after their future daughter’s due date
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This couple deserves an award, and they haven’t even had their child yet.
After seeing a thread on Reddit’s r/DIY subreddit with a similar idea, Andy and Lisa decided to make a fiber-optic star ceiling in their daughter’s nursery. Only this one has a precise star map based on their child’s due date.
It’s as amazing and complex as it sounds.
The couple put up a post of their own, where they shared 46 photos depicting all of the incredibly taxing steps it took to complete the project.
Let’s briefly summarize.
First, they pushed aside all of the insulation in the attic. Read more…
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Researchers spot colliding galaxies interacting in the early universe
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The earliest eons of the universe were turbulent and violent.
Newly found data shows that back then — just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang set this cosmic experiment in motion — a group of 14 galaxies in the midst of star formation merged and interacted with one another.
The galaxies found in the new data, which was collected by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) ALMA and APEX telescopes, are known as starburst galaxies.
These types of galaxies form thousands of stars each year, as opposed to a more typical galaxy like our own, which only forms a few annually. Read more…
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View More Researchers spot colliding galaxies interacting in the early universeAstronomers are out looking for the sun’s long-lost siblings
The sun has siblings out there, and astronomers are looking for them.
Astronomers have surveyed and collected the “DNA” of more than 340,000 stars in the Milky Way, which will help them understand how galaxies formed and evolved over time.
SEE ALSO: …
Hubble Space Telescope spots the farthest star ever seen thanks to quirk of nature
Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have spotted the most distant star ever studied thanks to some cosmic luck.
The star, named Lensed Star 1 (LS1 for short), was born about 9 billion years ago and is thought to be a huge, blue star with a su…
That interstellar asteroid probably came from a solar system with two suns
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Remember the interstellar asteroid that zipped through our solar system last year? It likely came from a very alien place.
According to a new study, the asteroid, named ‘Oumuamua, probably came from a solar system with two stars.
(Perhaps the best analog for this kind of binary system is actually in fiction. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine orbits two stars, or suns. A star is a “sun” if it’s the center of a planetary system.)
Researchers have some good reasons for thinking that ‘Oumuamua — which clocks in at an impressive 1,312 feet long — came to our solar system by way of a binary system. Read more…
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Scientists uncover a signal sent out by the first stars in the universe
For millions of years after the Big Bang, the universe was a cold place filled with hydrogen and helium created at the dawn of the universe.
And then, suddenly, there was light.
For the first time, a team of astronomers think they’ve detected a…
Get wireless listening freedom for a fraction of the price of AirPods
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Wireless earbuds — you either love them, or you don’t. People tout them for their improved convenience, but most of them have a history of sacrificing on sound quality. If you’re going to stick two tiny pods in your ears and they end up playing mediocre sound, then what’s the point?
Rarely does a pair of earbuds deliver so many necessary features without compromising on any of them. The TREBLAB X2 Bluetooth Earbuds seem to tick all the right boxes. Ultra-HD sound? Check. Long-lasting battery? Check. Noise-canceling feature? Check. Lossless capability? Check. Water and sweat proof? Check and check. Read more…
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View More Get wireless listening freedom for a fraction of the price of AirPodsNeil DeGrasse Tyson explains the term ‘the stars align’
StarTalk Radio Host Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains what it means when someone says ‘the stars align.’ It turns out there’s a major problem with the term that you may not have known.
Check out more of StarTalk Radio’s podcasts here.
StarTalk on Ma…