This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is known as... Continue Reading →
Billions of years in the future, our dead sun will morph into a giant cosmic jewel, a new study suggests. Like the vast majority of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, the sun will eventually collapse into a white dwarf, an... Continue Reading →
The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy runs through this complex and beautiful skyscape. Seen toward colorful stars near the northwestern edge of the constellation Vela (the Sails), the 16 degree wide, 200 frame mosaic is centered on the glowing filaments of the Vela... Continue Reading →
They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of four 12-meter reflecting-mirror telescopes surrounding a larger telescope housing a 28-meter mirror. They are designed to detect... Continue Reading →
This was an unusual night to look in the direction of the Bull. The constellation Taurus is always well known for hosting two bright star clusters -- the Pleaides, visible on the right, and the comparatively diffuse Hyades, visible on the left. This night... Continue Reading →
Generations of exploration have seen spacecraft bearing both the American flag and the NASA logo ranging throughout the solar system. The diagram, color-coded by decade, tracks most of those journeys. It is an illustration of ambition, of innovation, even of... Continue Reading →
Why are these people shooting a powerful laser into the center of our Galaxy? Fortunately, this is not meant to be the first step in a Galactic war. Rather, astronomers at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) site in Chile are trying to measure the distortions... Continue Reading →
On January 3, the Chinese Chang'e-4 spacecraft made the first successful landing on the Moon's farside. Taken by a camera on board the lander, this image is from the landing site inside Von Karman crater. It shows the desksized, six-wheeled Yutu 2 (Jade Rabbit 2)... Continue Reading →
For the first time in history, a space mission has touched down on the far side of the moon. China’s Chang’e-4 probe landed in the oldest and deepest basin on the moon’s surface. One challenge of sending a probe to... Continue Reading →
Scents of Science 