Washington (AFP) Oct 9, 2024
A massive ball of plasma and accompanying magnetic field ejected from the Sun is expected to strike Earth on Thursday morning, potentially triggering auroras as far south as Alabama, according to US forecasters. It comes as the Sun approaches - or is possibly at - the peak of its 11-year cycle, when activity is heightened. In May, the planet experienced its most powerful geomagnetic s

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 10, 2024
The main reflector for the 40-meter-aperture radio telescope's antenna system was successfully installed on Monday in Shigatse, located in the Xizang autonomous region of Southwest China, according to CCTV News. This telescope is a collaborative project between the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 39th Research Institute of China Electr

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 09, 2024
The discovery of a giant planet orbiting the M-dwarf star TOI-6383A has offered fresh insights into the formation of giant planets around these cool, low-mass stars. TOI-6383A, less than half the mass and radius of the Sun, forms a binary system with an even cooler companion star. The newly discovered planet, with a mass and radius comparable to other known giant planets, raises important questi

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 10, 2024
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, alongside several other telescopes, has uncovered a rare cosmic phenomenon-a black hole destroying a star and using the resulting debris to batter another celestial object nearby. In 2019, astronomers first detected the event when a star ventured too close to a black hole, resulting in the star's destruction by the black hole's gravitational forces. The st

Coral Gables FL (SPX) Oct 09, 2024
A picture of the Andromeda galaxy on the cover of an encyclopedia started it all. Nico Cappelluti was only 7 years old, but after seeing that image of the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way, curiosity got the best of him, and he knew astronomy would be his calling. So he convinced his father to buy him an amateur telescope, and from the backyard of his home in Rimini, Italy, he would us

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 09, 2024
A recent international study led by Canadian researchers has unveiled new findings about GJ 9827 d, an exoplanet orbiting the star GJ 9827, located about 98 light-years away in the constellation Pisces. Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists have found that this planet's atmosphere contains a high concentration of heavier molecules, including water vapor, suggesting it

Reading UK (SPX) Oct 07, 2024
Discovering extraterrestrial life would be one of the most profound scientific and philosophical revelations that our species has ever made. But such a big discovery won't come easy. Our starting point is to first search other worlds for signs of habitability, that is, the potential for life to exist. Nasa is doing just that: launching a spacecraft on October 10 to Europa, a moon of Jupite

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 10, 2024
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform future plans to study like types of planets around other stars. Astronomers used Uranus as a proxy for similar planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets,

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 10, 2024
As the European Space Agency's (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft completed its gravity assist maneuver around the Earth and Moon in August, the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instrument successfully captured ultraviolet emissions from both celestial bodies. This event marked an important milestone in validating the instrument's performanc

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 10, 2024
Astronomers have observed Jupiter's legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), an anticyclone large enough to swallow Earth, for at least 150 years. But there are always new surprises - especially when NASA's Hubble Space Telescope takes a close-up look at it. Hubble's new observations of the famous red storm, collected 90 days between December 2023 to March 2024, reveal that the GRS is not as stable