Astronomy
- Astronomy
Black hole app lets you blow up stars
NOVA’s Black Hole app for iPad is an addictive game that teaches lessons about gravity and astronomy while letting you hurl stars at one another.
- Tech
SpaceX rocket explodes on Florida launchpad
SpaceX has lost a Falcon 9 rocket and its satellite payload in a standard prelaunch test.
- Astronomy
Radio signal probably not from extraterrestrials
A possible radio signal from extraterrestrials probably originated a lot closer to home.
- Astronomy
Signs of planet detected around sun’s nearest neighbor star
A planet roughly the size of Earth orbits within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun.
- Astronomy
Astronomers prepare for 2017 solar eclipse spectacle
With one year to go, researchers are making plans for studying both the sun and Earth during the August 2017 total solar eclipse.
- Astronomy
Tabby’s star drama continues
Tabby’s star, already known for its bizarre flicking and fading, dimmed throughout the four years of Kepler’s primary mission.
- Astronomy
Dark matter candidate particles are a no-show in Hitomi data
Before the Hitomi satellite broke apart, it captured data that cast further doubt on evidence of X-rays from dark matter particles in a galaxy cluster.
- Astronomy
This year’s Perseid meteor shower will be especially flashy
This year’s Perseid meteor shower could produce up to 200 meteors per hour as Earth plows through the debris trail of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.
- Particle Physics
Cooling stars hint at dark matter particles
Stars that cool faster than expected can be explained by hypothetical particles called axions.
- Astronomy
Magnetic fields in sun rise at 500 kilometers per hour
Magnetic fields within the sun rise up no faster than about 500 kilometers per hour, suggesting that the movement of gas is responsible for bringing these fields to the sun’s surface.
- Astronomy
Kepler tally grows: 104 more exoplanets confirmed
Kepler space telescope adds another 104 planets to its growing census of worlds in our galaxy.
- Astronomy
Black hole born without stellar parent, evidence suggests
A galaxy in the early universe might harbor the first known “direct collapse” black hole, one that forms when a cloud of gas collapses under its own weight without forming stars.
