Music of a pulsing star reveals its inner structure.
Nature looks inside pulsing stars – not pulsars, but a group called “δ Scuti stars” – that flicker in a regular enough pattern that astronomers […]
astronomy
Science Art: Albumasar De magnis coniunctionibus, 1515
Click to embiggen Ja’far ibn Muḥammad Abū Ma’shar wrote a book – and published it in Venice. It was the place to be, and to […]
Science Art: Cosmic Reef, by the Hubble Space Telescope
Click to embiggen Astronomers are marking the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope with a “ portrait of a firestorm of starbirth in a […]
SONG: In the Sounding Deep
SONG: “In the Sounding Deep”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Scientific American, April 2020, “Undersea Telescopes Scan the Sky from Below,” as used in the post “Telescopes […]
Bored with hanging out at home? Count some penguins (or spot some galaxies) for science.
Scientific American has some suggestions for your self-isolation. There are a few ways you can help researchers out without ever leaving home: “I think where […]
Telescopes deep under the sea are revealing secrets of deep space.
Scientific American has more on how some astronomers are using the ocean itself to scan the skies: Suspended near the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea […]
Our galaxy is bigger than we’d thought.
Science News reports that astronomers have found the dark edge of the Milky Way – the unlit mass of dark matter spinning beyond the bright […]
Science Art: Hemisphere Austral, XVIII from Atlas Coelestis, by John Flamsteed, 1729.
Click to embiggen From 1675 until his death in 1719, John Flamsteed worked at the newly built Greenwich Observatory, charting the stars in the sky. […]
Betelgeuse was maybe just dusty, not dying.
Science News checks back on the big star that suddenly went dim (as regular readers here will remember) a couple of months ago, prompting some […]
They found a merging pair of black holes. And they named the formation “Spikey.”
Scientific American introduces us to a a couple of black holes named Spikey: In 2017 astrophysicists Daniel D’Orazio and Rosanne Di Stefano detailed how a […]
SONG: Under Orion’s Arms
SONG: “Under Orion’s Arms”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: SPACE.com, 3 January 2020, “Will Bright Star Betelgeuse Finally Explode? A Look at the Dimming Red Giant in […]
So Orion’s shoulder might be about to explode.
Something’s going on up there. SPACE.com actually says it’s a good idea to watch the skies “just in case” Betelgeuse is about to blow up: […]
Last Thursday, a “city-killer” asteroid buzzed by Earth, and we had no clue it was coming.
LiveScience was among the outlets breathlessly describing our close encounter with a giant speeding space-rock that took us all by surprise: Ranging in size from […]
Science Art: Galileo’s Moon Phases, 1616.
Click to embiggen slightly Galileo drew pictures of the moon – pictures that included imperfections on the surface. The moon, he observed, had texture. Hills […]
Science Art: Map IX: The Constellations of June and July by William Peck.
Click to embiggen An image of the summer sky (in the Northern Hemisphere) by William Peck, F.R.A.S., from his book, The constellations and how to […]