A new paper describes how laser beams could disrupt measurements of Earth’s orbit around the sun, potentially deceiving inquisitive aliens. Here, a 22W laser used for adaptive optics shines from the Very Large Telescope in…
Detecting tiny planets amid a star’s glare, from many light-years across the galaxy, is very challenging. Direct imaging, or resolving planets as pixels in a photograph, is only possible today for large, Jupiter-class and above,…
One minute, you’re chilling on a mountain. The next you’re being dwarfed by the biggest Moon you’ve ever seen – one that seems to be coming right down to rest on Earth’s surface. That’s what appears to…
Black holes, while fascinating, are hardly a new discovery – but a black hole spinning at one of the highest speeds ever, according to the Hindustan Times, is a completely different story – especially when…
It’s been a big year for Uranus. We’ve learned quite a bit about the planet thanks to new research efforts aimed at explaining why it behaves dramatically different when compared to the other planets in…
this week, and while it doesn’t pose much of a threat to our planet it’s worth mentioning simply because of its size. The rock, known as 2019 DN, is slated to arrive at its closest point…
It is an extreme want of everybody who is occupied with space, to visit the red planet once. A Finnish producer has gathered some NASA pictures from the red planet and made an eminent short…
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy continues to wow us with his brilliant photos. He recently pulled together an incredible, high-resolution image of the moon from 50,000 photographs. While working on that project, he took the opportunity to also create a…
Just 30 years ago, we had not discovered a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know of more than 3,000 of them, and we know nearly every star in the night sky has…
You might be aware of one of Uranus’ complexities: It spins on its side, and its moons orbit on that same rotated plane. New evidence strengthens the case that Uranus was smashed in a giant…
The Giant Magellan Telescope will be the world’s biggest telescope — and it will look deeper into the past than we’ve ever seen before. The universe is a big place. Let’s rephrase that. The universe…
Gliese 581d is a potentially habitable planet just 20 light-years away. In 20 years we could know if it delivers on that potential. DarinK/deviantART/CC License Exactly four centuries ago this year, Galileo sent a letter…
That’ll learn those asteroids to crash into our planet. If an asteroid was shooting towards Earth, what would our options be? Sure, we could send up a ragtag team of miners to drill into the…