Space

Oct 20th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A new set of images and measurements of the Milky Way's central black hole – Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) – a region in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This analysis suggests Sgr A* spins fast and faces us at a slight tilt. The fresh view of Sgr A* comes from software that learns patterns in telescope signals that used to be tossed out as too messy. Back in May 2022, astronomers studied our black hole with the Event ... [Read More]

Oct 20th, 2025 - On the night of April 19, 1787, astronomer William Herschel noted an hours-long light as bright as the Orion Nebula emanating from the unlit, new moon . He had likely witnessed a "transient lunar phenomenon" (TLP) — a short-term change in the appearance of part of the lunar surface. TLPs include brightening , reddish or violet blotches and foggy spots . In fact, some 3,000 TLPs have been documented over the past two millennia by people wielding telescopes, cameras or just plain good ... [Read More]

Oct 20th, 2025 - BepiColombo , a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launched Oct. 20, 2018. The spacecraft is actually two satellites in one, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), commissioned with investigating one of the least-visited planets in our solar system. To reach its final position, BepiColombo received assistance from the gravity of the two inner planets, flying by Venus twice and Mercury six times. That ... [Read More]

Oct 20th, 2025 - The comet-like object Chiron has been caught in the process of forming new rings, which could help us understand how these complex systems work For the first time, astronomers are watching a ring system form in real time. The rings in question encircle Chiron, a comet-like object that takes a path around the sun between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. Every time we look at Chiron, its rings seem to be a little different. Chiron isn't the first small object we have observed rings around: the ... [Read More]

Oct 19th, 2025 - New research shows that dark matter has a different distribution in our galaxy than previously thought, and that advances dark matter's status as a potential source of the observed gamma ray excess in the Milky Way's center. High-resolution simulations reveal that the dark matter distribution in the inner galaxy is not spherical, but flattened and asymmetrical. The findings confirm the theory that the gamma ray excess is due to dark matter annihilation. Scientists have long suspected dark ... [Read More]

Oct 19th, 2025 - A cosmic pinch may reveal dark matter's faintest fingerprint yet. For decades, astronomers have searched for something they cannot see. They call it dark matter—an invisible substance thought to make up most of the universe's mass, sculpting galaxies and clusters with its gravity. Now, researchers say they have spotted the smallest dark matter clump ever detected, a million times more massive than the Sun yet entirely dark. The discovery, described in Nature Astronomy by Devon Powell of ... [Read More]

Oct 19th, 2025 - Quick facts What it is: HH 211, a baby star erupting with gargantuan energy jets Where it is: 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. When it was shared: Sept. 17, 2025 Most events in the universe are not fully understood, including the relatively simple process of star formation. Stars form in dense clouds of cold gas and dust. When these clouds reach a threshold mass, they collapse under their own gravity, leading to the birth of a baby star, or protostar. As these young ... [Read More]

Oct 18th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A star died in a way that astronomers had long suspected but never seen so clearly. Its remains show two separate layers of debris, the calling card of a double explosion . The object sits in the Large Magellanic Cloud , a nearby dwarf galaxy about 160,000 light years away. Its relic shell, named SNR 0509-67.5, still glows centuries after the blasts. In a peer reviewed paper, the team reports two distinct shells rich in calcium, with a single shell of sulfur nestled ... [Read More]

Oct 18th, 2025 - When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) began operations, one of its earliest surveys was of galaxies that existed during the very early universe. In December 2022, these observations revealed multiple objects that appeared as "little red dots" (LRDs), fueling speculation as to what they might be. While the current consensus is that these objects are compact, early galaxies, there is still debate over their composition and what makes them so red. On the one hand, there is the "stellar-only" ... [Read More]

Oct 18th, 2025 - Gamma ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the universe, briefly outshining entire galaxies in a violent flash of high energy radiation. These - excuse the pun - astronomical detonations release more energy in a few seconds than our sun will produce over its entire ten billion year lifetime, sending jets of gamma rays racing through space. Despite their incredible brightness, gamma ray bursts are fleeting events, lasting anywhere from milliseconds to several minutes before fading ... [Read More]

Oct 18th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google It's time for stargazers to turn their telescopes toward the night sky. October is setting the stage for two cosmic visitors. Two newly discovered comets, C/2025 A6 Lemmon and C/2025 R2 SWAN , will sweep across the sky this month.  C/2025 R2 (SWAN) will make its closest approach on October 20, coming within 24 million miles of Earth. Just a day later, on October 21, C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) will sweep past at about 55 million miles. As they draw closer to Earth, the comets ... [Read More]

Oct 18th, 2025 - ", by Jie Li and associates, published in August 2025, challenges prevailing assumptions about the nature of many low-density exoplanets. Those planets that have been interpreted as water worlds (composed of rock and abundant water ice) may instead owe their low densities to large amounts of refractory carbon, also known as soot in astrophysics. In the study's model, planets forming beyond the so-called "soot-line" in the protoplanetary disc can accumulate a significant amount of organic carbon ... [Read More]

Oct 18th, 2025 - Was Oumuamua a space probe? Is 3I/ATLAS another? If so, why haven't they said hello? The humble residents of this pale blue dot have been on a quest to find an alien civilisation for more than a century. First, it was the "canals" of Mars . Then there were enigmatic radio "lighthouses." And the famous "Wow" signal. All have ended up with mundane and mechanical explanations. "It stands to reason that the Universe should be buzzing with activity, but we've been searching for signals for decades ... [Read More]

Oct 17th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers used the ALMA radio array in Chile to show that two narrow spiral arms are funneling gas toward the central monster in the Circinus galaxy. The galaxy sits about 13 million light years away in the southern sky. Only a small share of that inflow reaches the inner engine. Less than 12 percent keeps going inward, while the rest gets pushed back out. Circinus galaxy's spiral arms Circinus hosts a supermassive black hole , a central black hole with millions of ... [Read More]

Oct 17th, 2025 - Standing on Earth and gazing out into the night sky, you'd think our Milky Way galaxy is relatively calm. Oh sure, there's the occasional supernova and a bit of unrest as huge gas clouds collide and start to form stars. But as a whole, the vast cosmic neighborhood in which we live feels stately. Most nearby galaxies we can see look that way as well, just quietly going about their cosmic business. Tranquil. But that's not the case for all galaxies. Centaurus A is an overly enthusiastic oddball ... [Read More]

Oct 17th, 2025 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, October 17 The Summer Triangle is now sinking in the west late in the evening as the winter constellations prepare to take over the sky. Look west around 10 P.M. local daylight time and you can still see the three bright stars of the Summer Triangle about 50° high.  Tonight the asterism appears almost as a right triangle, with a horizontal base formed by Altair in Aquila and Vega in Lyra. Above Lyra is Deneb in Cygnus, the ... [Read More]