Engineers are testing prototype heat shields for a proposed interstellar probe that first would fly close by the Sun for a gravitational slingshot into deep space.
Over the course of the next two nights the annual April Lyrid meteor shower is predicted to reach its 2021 peak. Lyrid meteors appear to emanate from the direction of Lyra’s brilliant star Vega, hence the name.
The eVscope is the brainchild of three scientists and one industrial engineer. Together, they founded Unistellar to realise their dream of a portable, self-contained and easy-to-use instrument for astronomers that they say is “100 times more powerful than a classical telescope.”
To mark the Hubble Space Telescope’s 31st anniversary in space, astronomers captured a dramatic image of a rare luminous blue variable, one of the most massive and brightest stars in the Milky Way.
