Category Archives: News and Updates

News about Astronomy and Space Science. Find every news item and update here, in blog format. You can get these updates sent straight to your mailbox by subscribing here, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the link.

How you can work with NASA to discover your own protoplanet

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

I am constantly amazed at how suddenly astronomers learned how to discover new exoplanets.  When I was in high school, planets were often assumed to exist around other stars, but nobody ever expected to be able to see one.  After all, trying to see an object as small as a planet next to something as bright as a star, from light years away, is like trying to spot a moth circling a floodlight from across the city.  And yet in … Continue reading →

Wet Asteroids

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Astronomers working with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel space telescope have found yet another place in our Solar System that has water: the asteroid Ceres.  They believe that the water comes from icy patches near the surface melting under the Sun’s warmth, but have not yet discounted the possibility of icy cryovolcanoes binging up water from deep within the asteroid’s body. Back in 1801 when Ceres was first discovered, it was hailed as a new planet. Astronomers of the … Continue reading →

Carnival of Space #354

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Welcome back to the 354th Carnival of Space! This week we’re hosting it right here at Urban Astronomer, so settle in for your round-up on what’s news in the worlds of space science and astronomy. We’re in a good mood today, since we got a step closer to achieving our long-term goal of bringing Urban Astronomer to you through alternative media channels – check out CliffCentral to see where we’ve set our sights. But back to the Carnival.  First up … Continue reading →

How to study gravitational lenses with X-rays

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Researchers working with the Fermi observatory have used gamma radiation coming from a distant supermassive black hole (SMBH) to measure the amplifying effect of a gravitational lens. When distant galaxies are lined up just right with even more distant ultra-bright objects, the galaxy’s gravitational field bends the distant object’s light and curves it back into our line of sight, just like a gigantic lens. Astronomers have used these chance alignments for years to study things that would otherwise be too … Continue reading →

Cosmic Dust Mystery – Solved by Supernova?

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Although galaxies are composed primarily of empty vacuum, the space between stars is filled with mind-bogglingly huge clouds of gas and dust. The dust is a fine mix of microscopic particles of various carbon and silicon compounds, and is a major component of some the most breathtaking nebulae in the sky. But despite the amount of time astronomers have spent studying these dust clouds, they have never been quite sure where it comes from. That might be set to change, … Continue reading →