Anyone who has ever attended an air show has witnessed the death-defying acrobatics of pilots. But one maneuver stands out as a crowd favorite: the “barrel roll,” in which an aircraft makes a full 360-degree rotation in mid-air. It should come as no surprise that performing this exercise is no easy feat – even in … Read more
The detailed mechanisms of how matter from beyond the event horizon falls into a black hole have been revealed in a new paper. As predicted by Einstein’s theory of gravity, there is a point at which material stops circling the black hole and falls straight down, suddenly plunging beyond the point of no return. Now … Read more
On Saturday, revelers across Spain and Portugal ventured out into the temperate spring evening, hoping for an evening to remember. No one expected a visitor from space to explode over their heads. At 11:46 p.m., a fireball shot through the sky in Portugal, leaving a smoldering trail of glowing graffiti. Images shared on social media … Read more
Astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized planet that is receiving so much radiation that its atmosphere has long since eroded away, leaving it barren. Life as we know it cannot exist on this sizzling world, but astronomers are interested in it for another reason: for the first time, they may be able to see the geology … Read more
Lori Klamner. All photos courtesy of Lori Klamner. By Bonnie Eissner Upper West Sider Lori Klamner was terrible at meditating, she told West Side Rag in a recent interview. At the end of yoga classes, when she needed to focus on her breathing, she thought about her to-do list instead. Then, during the pandemic, she … Read more
WASP-193b, a new exoplanet, is 50% larger than Jupiter, but seven times less massive, with an extremely low density comparable to cotton candy. Discovered by WASP and confirmed by observatories in Chile, the formation challenges current planetary theories and requires further research. Credit: SciTechDaily.com This exoplanet is larger but seven times less massive than Jupiter … Read more
The internet is on fire with images of a meteor streaking through the night sky over Portugal and Spain, lighting up the sky in a blue-green fireball. The meteor was confirmed by the European Space Agency (ESA), which caught the fireball with its cameras in Cáceres, Spain, on Saturday (May 18) at 6:46 PM EDT … Read more
The remaining light from the early universe has a major flaw, and we don’t know how to fix it. It’s the cold spot. It’s just way too big and way too cold. Astronomers aren’t sure what it is, but largely agree it’s worth investigating. The cosmic microwave background (CMB) was created when our universe was … Read more
New evidence strongly suggests the existence of a Planet 9 on the edge of our solar system. Image via Solen Feyissa/Unsplash. New evidence for Planet 9 Evidence is growing that a planet the size of Neptune – Planet 9 – is hiding deep in the outskirts of our solar system. Researchers from Caltech, Université Côte … Read more
Enlarge / The surface of Ryugu. Image credits: JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, Aizu University, AIST An asteroid that has been drifting through space for billions of years will be bombarded by everything from rocks to radiation. Billions of years of traveling through interplanetary … Read more