Science Art: Cassini’s view of Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, 2014
Click embiggen So much depends on perspective. Image from the European Space Agency – taken by Cassini on its way to Saturn, and doing a […]
astronomy
Mars might be a *really* alien planet.
Science News shows how Mars might not have formed with the rest of solid worlds of the inner solar system: Simulating the assembly of the […]
Science Art: “De Motib. Stellae Martis” from Astronomia Nova aitiologetos, by Johannes Kepler, 1609.
Click to embiggen This is a diagram of how Mars appeared in the sky, as observed by Johannes Kepler (and his boss, Tycho Brahe). The […]
Science Art: Motion in Space, 1950
We’re moving on a planet that’s moving around a sun that’s moving – that way. Not a moment of stillness anywhere. From The Physical Sciences, […]
Looking inside our galaxy’s biggest black hole
Science reports on the telescope that hopes to see the event horizon of the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way: Next […]
Finding life on Wolf 1061
Science Daily follows astronomers who have found a planet 14 light-years away that’s in just the right spot – the “Goldilocks zone” around its star […]
The first galaxies burned with green fire.
Science News didn’t get so poetic with their headline, but it amounts to the same thing. A team of astronomers has found a blaze of […]
Science Art: The Sun, December 4, 2016, Wavelengths 304-211-171
Click to embiggen Look up just right, and this is what you’ll see. From the “Sun In Time” page of the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Atmospheric […]
Saturn’s “Great Hexagon” changes color with the seasons
NASA has published some images of Saturn’s geometrically fascinating north pole that show a new seasonal color scheme: …Scientists are investigating potential causes for the […]
Dark matter is… doing something strange.
The Guardian and physicist Jon Butterworth are looking at something unexpected that the Spitzer Space Telescope has noticed. Galaxies are put together in a way […]
SONG: Gaia (1,000 Times)
SONG: “Gaia (1,000 Times)”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: “Milky Way mapper: 6 ways the Gaia spacecraft will change astronomy,” Nature, 09 Sep 2016, as used in […]
That’s a big map.
Nature reports on the Gaia space telescope’s new map that will pinpoint more than a billion objects by the time it’s done: Gaia, a space […]
A “strong signal” has SETI excited.
Ars Technica has a cautiously not-quite-freaked-out-yet look at what radio astronomers think might well be evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization: According to Paul Glister, author […]
There’s an Earth-like planet right next door.
Howdy, neighbor! Nature sets our sights on the planet just like ours orbiting Proxima Centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor: Proxima Centauri, the star closest to […]
Science Art: Theoria Satellitum Iovis et Saturni from Atlas Coelestis by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, 1742.
A geometry of the heavens (specifically the moons of Jupiter and Saturn0, as envisioned by mathematician, astronomer, and mapmaker Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, a German who […]