Milky Way Black Hole – An international collaboration of astronomers released the first detailed image of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, known as Sgr A*. Event Horizon Telescope consortium is the same that three years ago imaged the black hole at the center of galaxy M87, known as M87*.… Continue reading.
Milky Way Star Formation History – The sub giant phase of a star’s life occurs when nuclear fusion stopped in its core and it is on the way to becoming a red giant star. A sub giant star’s age can be calculated fairly precisely from measurable properties like its elemental composition.… Continue reading.
FRB Source Located – Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are powerful flashes of radio energy that last only milliseconds, and what causes them is not understood. Some of them repeat from the same source, but many do not. A research team led by scientists at Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Amsterdam linked up twelve radiotelescope antennas around the world to obtain extreme location precision on one FRB repeater.… Continue reading.
DESI – The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is only about 10 percent of the way through its five-year operation, but its team, led by astronomers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has already produced the largest ever three-dimensional map of the Universe.… Continue reading.
Hydrogen Filament – A group of astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has identified the radio signature of a giant filament of atomic hydrogen 3,900 light-years long and 130 light-years wide, located near the far side of our Milky Way galaxy.… Continue reading.
James Webb Space Telescope Launched – Shortly after noon local time, December 25, the Ariane 5 rocket carrying the James Webb Space Telescope lifted off from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guyana. The infrared telescope is now starting its month-long journey towards its ultimate home, orbiting Earth’s L2 Lagrange point, about a million miles away.… Continue reading.
Hubble Resumes Observing – In late October, a computer onboard the Hubble Space Telescope detected that communications between computers and instruments were missing critical synchronization messages. All instruments were placed in safe mode so ground controllers could troubleshoot the problem. They tested each instrument independently and found all operating correctly, meaning the fault was likely somewhere in the communications, though they’re still investigating the root cause.… Continue reading.
Mars Floods – The Mars rover Perseverance has been studying the western delta fan, which was built up by layers of sediment dropped into Jezero Crater by a river, back when the crater was a lake, about 3.7 billion years ago.… Continue reading.
