Tag: Astronomy
-
Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe
Mishita takes us through a century of astronomy discoveries and how a “mistake” from Einstein may have been hiding a clue for decades
-
Bacterial prospectors take on the final frontier
Bacteria currently used as catalysts in earthbound mining processes could one day be used to extract critical elements in space and further the human settlement of other planets. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh struck gold with their discovery in a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications. Led by Charles Cockell, Professor of…
-
Cosmic ghost hunting: CNO neutrinos from the Sun detected for the first time
An international collaboration of particle physicists has announced the detection of solar neutrinos originating from the secondary fusion cycle powering the Sun. This is a world-first that could shine a light on the otherwise unseen solar core and further our understanding of stellar evolution. The Borexino Collaboration, using the eponymous Borexino detector at the Gran…
-
ESA & NASA Solar Orbiter captures first pictures of ‘campfires’ on the Sun
The first images taken by the spacecraft Solar Orbiter have been released, revealing many miniature solar flares near the surface of the Sun, which have been called ‘campfires’. An international collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, Solar Orbiter was launched on 10 February 2020 and in mid-June completed its first close pass…
-
Rewriting astronomy: have gravitational waves revealed an object to fill the mass gap?
When two massive objects collide in space, ripples in space-time are sent through the universe. These ripples – gravitational waves – can be detected, and give an insight into what they may have been. Last August, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detected gravitational waves from what was reported as the collision of a black hole and a…
-
Oldest galaxy disk yet to be observed: ‘Wolfe Disk’ formed soon after the Big Bang
Astronomers have found a galaxy with a disk that formed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang – early enough to challenge current ideas about galaxy formation. Massive disk galaxies, like our Milky Way, were expected to have formed around 3 or 4 billion years after the Big Bang. However, Marcel Neeleman at the…
-
Black hole discovered 1,000 light years away
European astronomers have found a black hole about 1,000 light years away from Earth – closer than any other discovered to date. Whilst 9.5 thousand, million, million kilometres might not sound very close, the next closest black hole discovered is about three times as far away as this one. The black hole at the centre…