UNSW engineers have demonstrated a well-known quantum thought experiment in the real world. Their findings deliver a new and more robust way to perform quantum computations – and they have important implications for error correction, one of the biggest obstacles... Continue Reading →
On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final ‘gravity assist manoeuvre’ needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026. The spacecraft flew just a few... Continue Reading →
Why is Polaris called the North Star? First, Polaris is the nearest bright star toward the north spin axis of the Earth. Therefore, as the Earth turns, stars appear to revolve around Polaris, but Polaris itself always stays in the same northerly direction -- making it the North Star. Since... Continue Reading →
Comet ATLAS is really bright now, but also really close to the Sun. Outside the glow of the Sun, Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) would be one of the more remarkable comet sights of recent years, reflecting about as much sunlight to Earth... Continue Reading →
A whitish, grey patch that sometimes appears in the night sky alongside the northern lights has been explained for the first time by researchers at the University of Calgary. The article, which was published on Dec. 30 in the journal Nature Communications, explores... Continue Reading →
The colorful, spiky stars are in the foreground of this image taken with a small telescope on planet Earth. They lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. But the two eye-catching galaxies in the frame lie far beyond the Milky Way,... Continue Reading →
What happens after a star explodes? A huge fireball of hot gas shoots out in all directions. When this gas slams into the existing interstellar medium, it heats up so much it glows. Two different supernova remnants (SNRs) are visible in the featured image,... Continue Reading →
Time dilation is one of the most intriguing concepts in Einstein's theory of relativity, fundamentally altering our understanding of time and space. It refers to the phenomenon where time appears to pass at different rates for observers in different frames... Continue Reading →
Earth's orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it's an ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year perihelion is today, January 4, at 13:28 UTC, with... Continue Reading →
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