Worlds Beyond
One of the most fascinating discoveries in modern astronomy is the detection of exoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. Scientists find many of these worlds by watching for tiny dips in a star’s brightness when a planet passes in front of it, a method called the transit method. These discoveries have revealed thousands of planets, including gas giants, rocky worlds, and planets that may exist in the habitable zone where liquid water could be pos
May 211 min read
The First Light from Sagittarius A
Seeing detailed images of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*, is one of the most significant recent achievements in astronomy. Using a global network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope, scientists captured the first image of the black hole’s shadow, revealing a bright ring of hot gas orbiting around it. This accomplishment not only confirmed key predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativ
May 21 min read
Artemis II Returns
After spending close to ten days in space, the Artemis II crew returned to Earth by splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego on April 10th at 8:07 p.m. EDT, exactly as planned. The Orion spacecraft went through the atmosphere at a speed of 35 times the speed of sound and suffered a six-minute communications blackout as the plasma formed around the capsule during re-entry. As soon as the signal was restored, the parachutes deployed according to plan, and Mission Cont
Apr 111 min read
Artemis II Update
Five days after starting their journey in deep space, the Artemis II crew arrived at the Moon on April 6 and immediately entered a period of observation for about seven hours as Orion circled the lunar surface. The entire mission was so far incredibly smooth, the translunar injection burn having gone flawlessly a few days earlier and placing the spacecraft on a trajectory that would loop around the Moon and use its gravity to return to Earth. As the crew approached, astronaut
Apr 72 min read
The Secrets of Titan
One of the strangest places in the solar system is Titan, and recent studies have only made it stranger. For long, the main assumption was that beneath the dense, murky atmosphere and the rivers and lakes of liquid methane, this moon had a large global ocean of water beneath its surface, a very promising condition for the existence of life. A new interpretation of NASA Cassini mission data published at the end of last year turned that view upside down. Rather than an ocean, T
Apr 41 min read
Life on Mars?
The issue of life on Mars has been discussed for several years, but it has only been recently that the facts have become so strong that they can hardly be ignored. NASA's Perseverance rover extracted a sample from a mudstone named "Sapphire Canyon" in Jezero Crater, an ancient lake bed, and detected a mixture of minerals, organic carbon, and microscopic textures that on Earth are almost exclusively linked to microbial activity. Scientists discovered pairs of iron-phosphate an
Apr 41 min read
Artemis II Launches
NASA's Artemis II launch from Kennedy Space Center on April 1st was a total success and frankly, it could not have been better. The SLS rocket — a vehicle notorious for fuel leaks and last-minute scrubs — managed a faultless flight on the very first attempt, right at the opening of the launch window. The Orion capsule (nicknamed Integrity by the crew) carries NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Ha
Apr 31 min read
