Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
OSIRIS-REx is the space probe that flew by the small near-Earth asteroid Bennu on October 20 and collected a sample of its surface material. When its controllers in mission control took images of the sample mechanism, they found that the sampling had been overly successful.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Nobel Prizes – The Nobel Prize committee includes astronomy as part of physics and this year three astronomers split the physics prize. Roger Penrose received half of the award for his mathematical work on the properties, even existence, of black holes.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Most Massive Black Hole Merger – The largest black holes ever observed to merge were detected by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors. The black holes were 85 and 66 times the Sun’s mass and merged to form one of 142 solar masses.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Dense Exoplanet – Observations by astronomers at the Pennsylvania State University found an unusually dense exoplanet orbiting a star in the Hyades open star cluster. Known as K2-25b, it is slightly smaller than Neptune but about 1.5 times as massive.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Mass Gap Breached – The largest known neutron star is about 2.2 times the mass of the Sun, which aligns with theoretical projections that predict a neutron star should collapse into a black hole at about this mass.… Continue reading.
By Dena McClung
The Denver Astronomical Society donated a new telescope to the West Custer County Library in Westcliffe, Colorado for the public to use.
After finding out the library had no telescope to loan, the DAS Executive Board voted several months ago to purchase and deliver a good quality, beginner telescope to the library.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Relativity Test – One of the principles of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that all different objects will fall at the same rate of acceleration at any given strength of gravity.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
General Relativity – While Newton’s formula for gravity yields elliptical shapes for orbits, Einstein’s theory of general relativity dictates that orbiting bodies follow an ellipse that moves. Each time around an orbit, the perihelion of the ellipse advances a little bit, rotating about the main mass.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Earth-like Planet Found – An exoplanet has been found that is the closest yet to being the size and temperature of Earth. It was found by NASA scientists in archived Kepler data, and has been dubbed Kepler-1649c.… Continue reading.