Like a shiny, round ornament ready to be placed in the perfect spot on a holiday tree, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) gleams in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. As part of the 2023 Holidays at the White House, First Lady of the United States Dr. Jill Biden debuted the first-ever ...
As an astronomer and meteor enthusiast, the Geminids make this the most wonderful time of the year. Each December sees the return of the Geminid meteor shower — the best natural fireworks display of the year — and people the world over head out to enjoy the show. This year promises to be extra special ...
In 1963, six years after the first satellite was launched, editors from the Encyclopaedia Britannica posed a question to five eminent thinkers of the day: “Has man’s conquest of space increased or diminished his stature?” The respondents were philosopher Hannah Arendt, writer Aldous Huxley, theologian Paul Tillich, nuclear scientist Harrison Brown, and historian Herbert J. ...
The scientific worldview has made great contributions to humanity’s flourishing. However, as science advances into territory once firmly held by religion — attempting to answer questions about the origins of the universe, life, and consciousness — science communication often paints a fairly pessimistic picture of the world. Take a few examples. An article in New ...
If you can get your hands on a telescope, there are few sights more spectacular than the magnificent sight of Saturn’s rings. Currently, Saturn is clearly visible in the evening sky, at its highest just after sunset. It’s the ideal time to use a telescope or binoculars to get a good view of the Solar ...
Our Sun is a steady and everlasting companion. Reliable like a clock, its apparent passage across the sky allows us to measure time. The Sun and its path is also the source of Earth’s seasons. But in many respects, our Sun is far from calm and unchanging. Close up, the Sun shows extensive variation and ...
When I was a child in the 1970s, seeing satellites pass overhead in the night sky was a rare event. Now, it is commonplace; sit outside for a few minutes after dark, and you can’t miss them. Thousands of satellites have been launched into Earth orbit over the past decade or so, with tens of ...
Reports this week suggest a near-collision between an Australian satellite and a suspected Chinese military satellite in space. Meanwhile, earlier this month, the U.S. government issued the first-ever space junk fine. The Federal Communications Commission handed a US$150,000 penalty to the DISH Network, a publicly traded company providing satellite TV services. It came as a ...
Every day and night, hundreds of thousands of intense, brief flashes of radiation suddenly flicker on and then off all across the sky. These “fast radio bursts” are invisible to the naked eye, but to a radio telescope, many almost outshine everything else in the sky for a few thousandths of a second. Since the ...
Every so often, astronomers glimpse an intense flash of radio waves from space — a flash that lasts only an instant, but puts out as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun does in a few years. The origin of these “fast radio bursts” is one of the greatest mysteries that astronomers are searching ...
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