NASA releases stunning views of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a hurricane-like storm about 10,200 miles (16,500km) wide and at least 150 years old. On July 10, the Juno spacecraft will complete the first ever up-close study of this...
How much moon do we see?
It’s common knowledge that our moon has a nearside and a farside. One half of the moon always faces Earth, and one half always points away. Does this mean we can only see 50% of the moon’s surface...
Astronomy: Bending light and dead stars
How much does a dead star weigh? That’s a question now with at least one solid answer – thanks to an experiment first suggested by Albert Einstein a century ago. This month astronomers led by...
An observatory higher than the sky
It’s a freezing January night, at 3200-meter above sea level, in southwest China. The wind sweeps across the mountaintop from east to west, reddening bare fingers in seconds. But looking at the...
Gravitational lenses reveal the universe’s brightest galaxies
The term “gravitational lensing” has become pretty commonplace. This effect, which occurs when light from a background object, such as a galaxy, is magnified and brightened when it encounters a...
Do stellar flares damage exoplanets?
Cool stars have really come into their own lately, especially as discoveries of their planetary systems increase (think TRAPPIST-1 and Proxima Centauri). But despite their relatively cool nature,...
Astronomers weigh a white dwarf using gravitational lensing
Einstein’s theory of general relatively changed the way scientists look at the universe. The presence of mass bends spacetime like a bowling ball depressing a mattress, causing light to curve as it...
‘Cold Spot’ Anomaly Billions of Light Years Across –“Was Caused By a Collision With Another Universe”
“This means we can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model. But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic...
