Elizabeth Tasker (@girlandkat on Twitter), the UK astrophysicist working at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the author of the popular science book “The Planet Factory” Notes 1 says “the habitable zone is the worst name ever in the history of naming anything” in her perfect doodly she published on Twitter.
Category Archives: Astronomy
The best view yet of 2I/Borisov, the first confirmed interstellar comet by the Hubble Space Telescope
On October 12, 2019, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provided astronomers with their best look yet at the first confirmed interstellar comet – the 2I/Borisov (originally designated C/2019 Q4).
10 lesser-known space facts
Did you know that the Moon and space itself have a smell? Space has a lot of surprises. Here are the 10 lesser-known space facts.
Are we alone in the Universe? Probably. Like the others.
The American cartoonist Matthew Inman published a brilliant comic titled “The Oracle” on his website “The Oatmeal”. Inman’s comic gives the most probable answer (IMHO) to Fermi Paradox, which can be summarized in these three words – “Where is everybody”.
Watch: ancient distance and apparent size of the Moon
Today, on average, the Moon is 384,400 km (238,000 miles) away from the Earth. But that was not always the case. Our satellite was much closer in the past. Now, Dr. James O’Donoghue (@physicsJ on Twitter) created the animation below showing how close was the Moon to the Earth and how was its apparent size […]
Comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) – our new interstellar “visitor”
After ʻOumuamua, now we are likely to have another interstellar visitor beyond our solar system: comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov). So the interstellar objects entering the solar system may not be rare at all.
Hubble’s last portrait of Saturn and its rings
On June 20, 2019, Hubble Space Telescope snapped this beautiful portrait of Saturn and its rings at the ringed planet’s closest approach to Earth. The image was published on September 12, 2019.
How we detected water on a potentially habitable exoplanet for the first time
Angelos Tsiaras, UCL With more than 4,000 exoplanets – planets orbiting stars other than our sun – discovered so far, it may seem like we are on the cusp of finding out whether we are alone in the universe. Sadly though, we don’t know much about these planets – in most cases just their mass […]
The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst
Thomas Moynihan, University of Oxford It is 1950 and a group of scientists are walking to lunch against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. They are about to have a conversation that will become a scientific legend. The scientists are at the Los Alamos Ranch School, the site for the Manhattan Project, where each […]
Saturn on steroids: J1407b
If you read Isaac Asimov’s 1986 novel “Foundation and Earth”, you’ll remember how the main characters of the book (Councilman Golan Trevize, historian Janov Pelorat, and Gaian Bliss) were amazed by Saturn’s rings. They were thinking the gas giant with preeminent rings in old stories was just a myth. But after seeing Saturn, they made […]
