An artist’s impression of Philae on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, released by the European Space Agency November 10, 2015 by Mariëtte Le Roux, Pascale Mollard-Chenebenoi A year ago on Thursday, the world held its collective breath as a European spacecraft dropped a tiny robot lab onto the surface of a comet hurtling towards the …
One year after comet touchdown, what’s next for Philae? Read More »
This cartoon shows the transiting planet GJ 1132b to scale against its host star GJ 1132. Credit: Zach Berta-Thompson Scientists have discovered a new exoplanet that, in the language of “Star Wars,” would be the polar opposite of frigid Hoth, and even more inhospitable than the deserts of Tatooine. But instead of residing in a …
Venus’ twin? Earth-sized rocky planet orbiting a nearby star Read More »
One of my favorite planetary nebulae in the sky, Sh2-68, aka The Flaming Skull Nebula. Photo by T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and H. Schweiker (WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF) I’ll be honest: Every episode of Crash Course Astronomy has been fun to write, edit, and shoot. They all really have. But the past few episodes, …
Crash Course Astronomy: White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulae Read More »
High resolution image of Messier 43 taken with the 6.5 meter Magellan telescope in Chile and the MMIRS, which sees into the near-infrared spectrum. (Image by Yuri Beletsky and Igor Chilingarian) Recently crowned the “astronomy photo of the year” by Slate’s Bad Astronomy blog, a new image of a region of Orion’s belt reveals the …
Stunning deep space photo reveals new details of Orion nebulae Read More »
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration A team of international scientists, led by astronomers from Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, has shown for the first time that galaxies can change their structure over the course of their lifetime. By observing the sky as it is today, and peering back in …
Astronomers unravel the history of galaxies for the first time Read More »
