constellations

If you want to stay grounded—which is to say, you want a haunting reminder of your own diminutive size and mortality—do I have the tool for you. Meet Galactic Compass: an app which will point the user towards the whopping black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*.How Dave Bautista Raised His Game For Dune: Part TwoAs you read this article, you are hurtling through space on a spinning, wobbling sphere, which is itself spinning around a hot ball of gas at the center of our solar system. But if you zoom much,…

A number of celestial events are lined up for the shortest month of the year,…

ISRO, NASA, ESA and other space agencies have been in the news for a plethora of amazing launches that will serve to shed new light o the Universe. In fact, the Indian space agency ISRO, launched the XpoSat satellite yesterday to study black holes, Magnetars and more. Know how you too can get into stargazing.(The Conversation) There are few things more peaceful and relaxing than a night under the stars. Through the holidays, many people head away from the bright city lights to go camping. They revel in the dark skies,…

The Milky Way over Pain de Sucre, France.Photo: Jeff GraphyThe cosmos is a hostile but beautiful place; from Earth, its phenomena—from our Sun and the aurorae it generates to nebulae and distant galaxies—are worth capturing.The winners of the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photography of the Year competition are set to be announced this September, and in anticipation of the announcement we’re sharing photos on the observatory’s shortlist. The Milky Way over Pain de Sucre, France.Photo: Jeff GraphyThe cosmos is…

In the past couple of days, you may have seen images of auroras shared by people on social media. The sudden surge in auroras is due to a large hole in the Sun's corona that resulted in a strong geomagnetic storm on Earth. Resultantly, millions of people in the US witnessed the magnificent Northern Lights triggered by this incident, which served as the catalyst. Even NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for March 27 is dedicated to a mesmerizing view of an Aurora over the Arctic.The image is set at the peaks of the iconic…

A Hubble image ruined by satellite streaks. Image: NASA/ESA/S. Kruk et al., 2023The steadily growing satellite population has been posing challenges for ground-based astronomy, but new research reveals that space-based telescopes like Hubble are also suffering.Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) spin around Earth once every 90 minutes. Factor in the thousands upon thousands of satellites currently working in orbit, and you can quickly grok the problem as far as ground-based astronomy is concerned. Constellations such as…

An increasing number of satellites in Earth orbit is threatening observations of the sky.Photo: ESOAstronomers looking up at the night skies have started to feel the effects of the growing number of satellites swarming Earth orbit, and they want to do something about it before it’s too late. An international group of astronomy organizations have banded together to petition the United Nations, asking it to form a group that monitors the impact of satellites on astronomy.The European Southern Observatory (ESO), the…

Do people have a right to an unobstructed view of the heavens? For most of human history, such a question would have been considered nonsensical—but with the recent rise of satellite mega constellations, it’s now being asked again and again. Mega constellations are vast groups of spacecraft, numbering in the thousands, that could spark a multitrillion-dollar orbital industry and transform global connectivity and commerce. But the rise of mega constellations also threatens to clutter the night sky, cripple the work of some…

Astronomer Rachel Street remembers feeling frightened after a recent planning meeting for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The new flagship telescope, under construction in Chile, will photograph the entire sky every three nights with enough observing power to see a golf ball at the distance of the moon. Its primary project, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, will map the galaxy, inventory objects in the solar system and explore mysterious flashes, bangs and blips throughout the universe. But the flagship telescope may…

Asteroids, comets, and other near-Earth objects (NEOs) pass by our planet daily. Meteors and even some asteroids have impacted our planet, often leaving fiery displays in the sky behind them. As of yet, though, we haven’t had to worry about any killer asteroids coming too close. But a recent survey says that mega constellations of satellites could make it harder to detect NEOs, putting Earth at risk. Survey says too many satellites in orbit make it hard to spot NEOs Discovering asteroids and other NEOs is…