Phosphine, released by microbes in oxygen-starved environments, was present in quantities larger than expected
Traces of a pungent gas that waft through the clouds of Venus may be emanations from aerial organisms – microbial life, but not as we know it.
Astronomers detected phosphine 30 miles up in the planet’s atmosphere and have failed to identify a process other than life that could account for its presence.
Continue reading...Miniature satellites open up a world of technological possibility. But experts say they degrade the astronomical landscape
The natural serenity of the night sky is a touchstone for all of us. Everyone alive today looks at the same stars no matter where they are located on the planet. But the connection is more profound because, next to our brief lives, the stars are immortal. Shakespeare saw the same stars in the same patterns that we do. So did Galileo, Columbus, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and the first human ancestor to look up in curiosity. The night sky is nothing short of our common human heritage.
Last year, however, something happened that might change that view for ever. On 23 May 2019, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched 60 small satellites from a single rocket. The satellites were the first in what is planned to be a “megaconstellation” of thousands of satellites that will bring internet coverage to the entire planet.
Continue reading...Several missions this year are seeking out life on the red planet. But would we recognise extraterrestrials if we found them?
In July, three unmanned missions blasted off to Mars – from China (Tianwen-1), the US (Nasa’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover) and the United Arab Emirates (Hope). The Chinese and American missions have lander craft that will seek signs of current or past life on Mars. Nasa is also planning to send its Europa Clipper probe to survey Jupiter’s moon Europa, and the robotic lander Dragonfly to Saturn’s moon Titan. Both moons are widely thought to be promising hunting grounds for life in our solar system – as are the underground oceans of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.
Meanwhile, we can now glimpse the chemical makeup of atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars (exoplanets), of which more than 4,000 are now known. Some hope these studies might disclose possible signatures of life.
Continue reading...Researchers believe noise was two black holes colliding around 7 billion years ago, creating a previously unseen class of stellar object
Scientists have announced the detection of a signal from a long-ago collision between two black holes that created a new one of a size never seen before.
“It’s the biggest bang since the big bang observed by humanity,” said Caltech professor of physics Alan Weinstein, who was part of the discovery team.
Continue reading...Scientists think a planet larger than Earth lurks in the far reaches of the solar system. Now a new telescope could confirm their belief and change solar system science
You’d think that if you found the first evidence that a planet larger than the Earth was lurking unseen in the furthest reaches of our solar system, it would be a big moment. It would make you one of only a small handful of people in all of history to have discovered such a thing.
But for astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, it was a much quieter affair. “It wasn’t like there was a eureka moment,” he says. “The evidence just built up slowly.”
Continue reading...Stargazing under threat as pristine skies over New Zealand and Australia are clogged with hundreds of Starlink satellites
Astronomers in the southern hemisphere have warned that the wonders of the night sky are at risk from hundreds of satellites that have been shot into space by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX.
The night skies of Australia and New Zealand are globally renowned for their clarity, drawing tourists from across the world to dark-sky sanctuaries such as Tekapo on New Zealand’s South Island and the Warrumbungle national park in New South Wales.
Continue reading...American and Russian crew touch down in Kazakhstan after months on International Space Station
The three-person crew of the International Space Station returned to Earth on Friday morning, arriving back to a world that has been radically transformed by coronavirus in the time they were away.
Space travel is often a journey into the unknown, but for Americans Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan, and Russian Oleg Skripochka, their return to Earth may bring more surprises than the time they spent in orbit. The trio’s landing capsule touched down on the Kazakh steppe in the early hours of the morning.
Continue reading...Scientists believe cigar-shaped visitor to our solar system is fragment of a larger body
The cigar-shaped interstellar visitor to our solar system known as ‘Oumuamua could be the remnants of a larger body that was torn apart by its host star, according to researchers.
The dark, reddish object that hurtled into our solar system in 2017 and was named after the Hawaiian word for messenger or scout has long puzzled scientists.
Continue reading...Detailed image taken by Event Horizon Telescope of black hole 5bn light years away
An image of a huge, powerful jet of plasma powered by a supermassive black hole has been captured by researchers in unprecedented detail.
The team say the bright blob on the left of the image is thought to be the disc of gas and dust swirling around the black hole, with the jet of plasma depicted by a stream of less intense red features apparently emanating from it.
Continue reading...Conditions on Wasp-76b in Pisces include temperatures of 2,400C and 10,000mph winds
Wasp-76b is what astronomers call an exoplanet, one that orbits a star outside our solar system. Scientists have discovered that the local weather conditions include 2,400C temperatures, winds in excess of 10,000mph and a steady pelting of iron rain.
The observations of the distant planet’s unusually hostile climate are the first results from a new instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile, which astronomers say will transform our view of worlds far from beyond our own solar system.
Continue reading...First observations from Inouye telescope bring previously hazy star into sharp focus
The sun’s turbulent surface has been revealed in unprecedented detail in the first observations by the Inouye solar telescope in Hawaii.
The striking images reveal a surprising level of structure hidden within the churning plasma exterior, bringing a previously hazy impression of the sun’s patchwork surface sharply into focus for the first time.
Continue reading...‘It’s right up in our face’ – close proximity of stellar nursery to our solar system stuns scientists
Astronomers have discovered a gigantic, undulating wave of dust and gas where newborn stars are forged over a 50 million billion mile stretch of the Milky Way.
The gaseous structure, which holds more mass than 3m suns, runs directly behind our solar system as viewed from the heart of the galaxy, but has eluded observation until now.
Continue reading...Engineers plan to collect rocks on Mars and bring samples to Earth, in one of the most complex robot space projects envisaged. The scheme, being developed by Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa), will involve robot rovers finding rocks that might contain evidence of past life.
The samples would be blasted into space, intercepted by an unmanned spacecraft, and dropped by parachute in the Utah desert, with the 500g of Martian soil and rock shared with researchers round the world.
Continue reading...The gas giant has 82 moons, surpassing the 79 known to orbit its larger neighbour
Saturn has taken over from Jupiter as host to the most moons in the solar system after astronomers spotted 20 more lumps of rock orbiting the ringed planet.
It brings the number of Saturnian moons to 82, surpassing the 79 that are known to orbit Jupiter, its larger, inner neighbour.
Continue reading...Observations reveal cluster of galaxies about 12bn light years away linked by gas filaments
The cosmic web, a vast, mysterious structure that links up far-flung galaxies, has been observed directly for the first time.
The observations reveal that an ancient cluster of galaxies about 12bn light years away in the constellation of Aquarius are linked together by a network of faint gas filaments. The existence of the cosmic web is central to current theories of how galaxies first formed following the big bang, but until now evidence for it had remained largely circumstantial.
Continue reading...Scientists say Milky Way’s Sagittarius A* has been more active in recent months
Unseeable and inescapable, black holes already rank among the more sinister phenomena out in the cosmos. So it may come as disconcerting news that the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way appears to be growing hungrier.
Astronomers monitoring the colossal object, called Sagittarius A*, found that in the past year it appears to have consumed nearby matter at an unprecedented rate.
Continue reading...Our galaxy is like a distorted disc, study based on Cepheid stars confirms
The most detailed three-dimensional map yet of the Milky Way has been revealed, showing that our galaxy is not a flat disc but has a “warped” shape like a fascinator hat or a vinyl record that has been left in the sun.
“The stars 60,000 light years away from the Milky Way’s centre are as far as 4,500 [light years] above or below the galactic plane – this is a big percentage,” said Dr Dorota Skowron of the University of Warsaw, first author of the latest research.
Continue reading...A dramatic timelapse at Chile's Coquimbo region captured a rare total solar eclipse on 2 July.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, plunging the planet into darkness. It happens only rarely in any given spot across the globe. Some of the best views this time were in Chile's Coquimbo region, where a lack of humidity and city lights combine to create some of the world's clearest skies.
Breakthrough Listen project found no evidence of alien civilisations on 1,327 stars
The close encounter will have to wait. Astronomers have come up empty-handed after scanning the heavens for signs of intelligent life in the most extensive search ever performed.
Researchers used ground-based telescopes to eavesdrop on 1,327 stars within 160 light years of Earth. During three years of observations they found no evidence of signals that could plausibly come from an alien civilisation.
Continue reading...Elon Musk’s Starlink internet satellites ‘have no public consensus and may impair view of the cosmos’
Mega constellations of human-made satellites could soon blight the view of the night sky, astronomers warned following the launch of Elon Musk’s Starlink probes last week.
The first 60 of an intended 12,000 satellites were successfully blasted into orbit on Thursday by Musk’s company, SpaceX, which plans to use them to beam internet communication from space down to Earth.
Continue reading...