If aliens wrap their planets in potent greenhouse gases like we do, we’d be able to tell. That’s according to a recent thought experiment in which scientists identified five “artificial” greenhouse gases that, if abundant enough, can be spotted in the atmospheres of certain exoplanets using existing technology, including the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). […]
The image of the Serpens Nebula you see above, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), not only looks mesmerizing but also captures a never-before-seen phenomenon. The aligned, elongated “protostellar outflows” visible in the top left support a longstanding theory. As suspected, the jets shoot out in alignment from the swirling disks of surrounding […]
The next ORION program, “Smart Telescopes,” will be at 7 p.m. June 19 at the City Room (Room A-111), McNally-Coffey Building, Roane State Community College, Oak Ridge campus. Don Spong will be the guest speaker. He is a plasma physicist who works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on fusion energy research. The title of the […]
Come 2029, skywatchers can glimpse at least one “star” in the sky made by humans. Earlier this week, NASA announced plans to place a small satellite in Earth orbit at a little over 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above our planet’s surface — far enough for the satellite to mimic a real star to telescopes on […]
An illuminating new program has stargazers and science educators aglow with inspiration. That program, called Stellar Dreams, is run by the nonprofit organization The Science Haven. It will give away 100 telescopes, with the goal of spurring interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) in underrepresented and underprivileged families. Founded by molecular biologist Raven […]
What it is: The Crab Nebula (also called M1), a supernova remnant Where it is: 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus When it was shared: June 3, 2024 Why it’s so special: This new composite image combines data from both the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory to reveal more […]
Many Hawaii residents oppose plans from the U.S. Space Force to build a suite of new telescopes designed to track satellites and prevent them from colliding in orbit. The Department of the Air Force has proposed building up to seven new telescopes and an optics lab on the summit of Haleakala on the Hawaiian Island […]
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have made the surprising discovery of methane emissions coming from a brown dwarf, or “failed star.” The find suggests that the brown dwarf features aurorae, and might even be orbited by an undiscovered exomoon, researchers said. The JWST brown dwarf discovery is surprising, because these cold and […]
The Euclid “dark universe” probe’s ailing vision has been restored after an experimental deicing campaign successfully evaporated ice from the telescope’s mirrors, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Tuesday (March 26). Ice layers as wide as a single DNA strand had collected on Euclid‘s mirrors, causing a small but progressive decrease in the amount […]
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is set to begin investigating the spectacular light shows of solar system giants Uranus and Saturn. Two separate teams of astronomers at the University of Leicester will use the $10-billion space telescope to study auroras over the gas giant Saturn and the frigid ice giant Uranus. The aim will […]
The images we get these days from advanced telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, undoubtedly leave us in awe and wonder of galaxies that exist light-years away from Earth. But what if these pictures could be improved even more?Researchers from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of […]
The Space Telescope Science Institute has announced which astronomy proposals have been selected to be given time with the James Webb Space Telescope over the next two years. On Thursday (Feb. 29), the organization outlined 253 General Observers (GO) programs that will use humanity’s most powerful and sensitive space telescope for a collective 5,500 hours […]