Category Archives: Astronomy

Scientists may have solved ancient mystery of ‘first computer’

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Researchers claim breakthrough in study of 2,000-year-old Antikythera mechanism, an astronomical calculator found in sea

From the moment it was discovered more than a century ago, scholars have puzzled over the Antikythera mechanism, a remarkable and baffling astronomical calculator that survives from the ancient world.

The hand-powered, 2,000-year-old device displayed the motion of the universe, predicting the movement of the five known planets, the phases of the moon and the solar and lunar eclipses. But quite how it achieved such impressive feats has proved fiendishly hard to untangle.

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Astronomers’ hopes raised by glimpse of possible new planet

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Bright speck in space near Alpha Centauri A may be evidence of asteroids or dust – or a technical glitch

Astronomers have glimpsed what may be a previously unknown planet circling one of the closest stars to Earth.

Researchers spotted the bright dot near Alpha Centauri A, one of a pair of stars that swing around each other so tightly they appear as one in the southern constellation of Centaurus. The stars form what is called a binary system 4.37 light years away, a mere stone’s throw in cosmic terms.

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Star buys: celebrities send meteorite prices into orbit

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Elon Musk, Steven Spielberg and Nicolas Cage among those who collect rocks that can cost millions

They really are from out of this world, and the prices are astronomical. For those who have everything they need on Earth, what they now want is a little bit of space. Meteorites are attracting the attention of celebrity collectors who have pushed the price of the rocks – which have hurtled through space for hundreds or even thousands of year before crashing into this planet – tenfold over the past decade.

More than 70 of the most spectacular meteorites ever found will go under the hammer at Christie’s auction house next week in a sale that is expected to generate millions of pounds. Included in the Deep Impact auction are meteorites embedded with gem stones and others have suffered such an impact from blasting through the atmosphere at up to 160,000mph that they resemble sculptures by Alberto Giacometti or Henry Moore.

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How to watch the Jupiter and Saturn ‘great conjunction’ on winter solstice

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On 21 December 2020, the planets will align, appearing closer than they have since the middle ages, in what is being called a ‘Christmas kiss’

This year, stargazers will have the chance to see a Christmas “kiss” beneath interplanetary mistletoe when Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer to one another and brighter than they have in 800 years in an event known as a “great conjunction”.

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Burst of radio waves in Milky Way probably came from neutron star

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First fast radio burst found in our galaxy is traced to magnetar 30,000 light years away

For more than a decade, astronomers have puzzled over the origins of mysterious and fleeting bursts of radio waves that arrive from faraway galaxies.

Now, scientists have discovered the first such blast in the Milky Way and traced it back to its probable source: a small, spinning remnant from a collapsed star about 30,000 light years from Earth.

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Three scientists share Nobel prize in physics for work on black holes

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Roger Penrose says win, shared with Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, ‘is in some ways a distraction’

Three scientists have won the 2020 Nobel prize in physics for their work on black hole formation and the discovery of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez together scooped the 114th Nobel prize in physics.

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The search for life – from Venus to the outer solar system

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While the discovery of the normally microbe-produced phosphine on our toxic neighbour is astonishing, other candidates for life are more promising

It remains one of the most unexpected scientific discoveries of the year. To their astonishment, British scientists last week revealed they had uncovered strong evidence that phosphine – a toxic, rancid gas produced by microbes – exists in the burning, acid-drenched atmosphere of Venus.

Related: If we don't find life on planets like Venus, doesn't it make us that bit more special? | Charles Cockell

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Scientists find gas linked to life in atmosphere of Venus

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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.

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Are Elon Musk’s ‘megaconstellations’ a blight on the night sky?

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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.

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Are aliens hiding in plain sight?

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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.

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‘It just sounds like a thud’: astronomers hear biggest cosmic event since big bang

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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.

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Beyond Pluto: the hunt for our solar system’s new ninth planet

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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.”

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Astronomers warn ‘wilderness’ of southern night sky at risk from SpaceX satellites

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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.

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Life, but not as they knew it: ISS crew return to Earth transformed by Covid-19

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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.

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Interstellar object ‘Oumuamua believed to be ‘active asteroid’

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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.

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Scientists capture image of black hole emitting high-energy jets

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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.

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Scientists identify rain of molten iron on distant exoplanet

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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.

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Telescope captures most detailed pictures yet of the sun

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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.

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Astronomers discover huge gaseous wave holding Milky Way’s newest stars

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‘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.

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Daring Mars mission to send rocks back to Earth in hunt for past life

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Europe poised to join US in complex plan to find evidence of fossil microbes on red planet

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.

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