On Sunday evening Willie Koorts had a fascinating half hour interview with Pierre De Villiers, outlining his part in the establishment of the Hermanus Astronomy Centre and many of its interesting and unique projects and outreach activities over the years. Click here to listen to the podcast: Sterre en Planete Podcast Also, here is a …
The first stars in the universe formed out of pristine hydrogen and helium clouds, in the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang. New James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations reveal that some of the first stars in the universe could have been very different from regular (nuclear fusion-powered) stars, which have been …
Potential smoking gun signature of supermassive dark stars found in JWST data Read More »
This image of the Crab Nebula combines data from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer(IXPE) in magenta and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in dark purple. Credit: X-ray (IXPE: NASA), (Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO) Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand & L. Frattare APRIL 10, 2023 by Elizabeth Landau, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre On Feb. 22, 1971, a sounding rocket …
Historic nebula seen like never before with Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explore Read More »
Slim Boom. Credit: Phil Drury, University of Sheffield An explosion the size of our solar system has baffled scientists, as part of its shape—similar to that of an extremely flat disk—challenges everything we know about explosions in space. The explosion observed was a bright Fast Blue Optical Transient (FBOT)—an extremely rare class of explosion which …
Scientists observe flattest explosion ever seen in space Read More »
This illustration shows the ingredients of a long gamma-ray burst, the most common type. The core of a massive star (left) has collapsed, forming a black hole that sends a jet of particles moving through the collapsing star and out into space at nearly the speed of light. Radiation across the spectrum arises from hot …
Brightest gamma-ray burst ever observed reveals new mysteries of cosmic explosions Read More »
