Archive – Page 126 – Astronomy Now

Jocelyn Bell Burnell earns £2.3 million prize for pulsar discovery

6 September 2018 Astronomy Now

Jocelyn Bell Burnell has been awarded a £2.3 million Breakthrough Prize for her discovery of periodic radio pulses that signaled the discovery of pulsars. She plans to donate the money to help women and minority astronomy students.

U.S. National Academies recommend imaging exoplanet telescope

6 September 2018 Astronomy Now

An influential panel of senior U.S. scientists and administrators recommends that NASA build a large exoplanet imaging telescope to answer fundamental questions how common Earth-like planets – and life – might be across the galaxy.

New database helps identify potentially ‘life friendly’ stars

4 September 2018 Astronomy Now

A new database lists the chemical compositions of more than 6,000 nearby stars and the abundances of elements from hydrogen to lead, giving astronomers a guide to stars that may host potentially habitable planets.

ALMA reveals dusty anatomy of an ancient starburst galaxy

3 September 2018 Astronomy Now

New observations of a starburst galaxy using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array resolve vast, unstable clouds thousands of light years apart that are thought to be sites for rapid-fire star formation.

To bring a dead star back to life, first get a black hole

1 September 2018 Astronomy Now

Computer simulations show an intermediate-mass black hole pulling in a white dwarf could trigger a brief burst of fusion, seeding space with heavy elements.

Shimmering aurora flicker above Saturn’s north pole

1 September 2018 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope’s imaging spectrograph captured Saturn’s spectacular aurora flickering over the ringed planets north polar region over a period of seven months in 2017.

Watch asteroid 2015 FP118 fly by Earth in early September

31 August 2018 Ade Ashford

Shortly after 11am BST on Monday, 3 September, an 800-metre-wide space rock with the catchy name 2015 FP118 hurtles past Earth some 12¼ times the average distance of the Moon. On subsequent nights we show you how to track it down with backyard telescopes of 10-inch (25-cm) aperture and larger.

VISTA captures huge Carina Nebula in all its infrared glory

29 August 2018 Astronomy Now

The European Observatory’s VISTA telescope captured this remarkably detailed view of the spectacular Carina Nebula, showing the vast star-forming region in infrared light with countless suns blazing through thin clouds of gas and dust, including the gigantic Eta Carinae binary system.

New Horizons catches sight of Kuiper Belt target ‘Ultima Thule’

29 August 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has finally caught sight of its post-Pluto target, a Kuiper Belt body nicknamed Ultima Thule. If all goes well, New Horizons will make a close flyby of the distant body on 1 January.

Surprisingly rapid magnetic field reversals pose risks to Earth

28 August 2018 Astronomy Now

About 100,000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic field reversed polarity in just two centuries or so, a surprisingly rapid reversal that, if it happened today, could cost trillions in damage to power and communications systems, researchers say.