A beautiful, bejeweled halo of warped light generated by a monstrous black hole takes center stage in one of the latest James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images. The luminous loop, which looks strikingly like a “Einstein ring“, is decorated with four points of light, but not all of them are real. The star-studded halo in … Read more
Ariane 6 will launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 9 July 2024. Credit: ESA – S. Corvaja Ariane 6, Europe’s new heavy lift rocket, made its maiden flight from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 16:00 local time on 9 July (20:00 BST, 21:00 CEST). Ariane 6 is the latest member of the … Read more
New observations of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot have revealed that the planet’s atmosphere above and around the infamous storm is surprisingly interesting and active. This image shows the region Webb observed – first the location on a NIRCam image of the entire planet (left), and then the region itself (right), imaged by Webb’s Near-InfraRed Spectrograph … Read more
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows Aganippe Fossa, a fascinating groove at the base of Mars’s colossal Arsia Mons volcano. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin A fascinating feature takes centre stage in this new image from ESA’s Mars Express: a dark, uneven scar cutting through the marble ground at the base of a gigantic volcano. This … Read more
Neutron stars are among the densest objects in the universe. The material inside them is so tightly compressed that scientists don’t yet know what shape it takes. The core of a neutron star may be a thick soup of quarks, or it may contain exotic particles that could not survive anywhere else in the universe. … Read more
A huge ‘planet killer’ asteroid will make a very close approach to Earth later this week, speeding safely past our planet at a speed of around 93,000 km/h. The ‘potentially hazardous’ mountain-sized object is one of the largest space rocks to pass close to Earth in more than a century – and you can watch … Read more
We’ve enjoyed a number of celestial spectacles in recent years – from total solar eclipses to stunning auroras – and yet Earth will soon witness a space event that will trump them all. In the next five years we will be treated to a visit from asteroid 99942 Apophis and it will come close enough … Read more
ESA’s fireball camera in Cáceres, Spain, captured this stunning meteor on Saturday evening, May 18, 2024. Credit: ESA/PDO/AMS82 – AllSky7 Fireball Network A meteor lighting up the skies over Spain and Portugal was captured by the Meteosat Third Generation Imager satellite and a ground-based camera in Spain. This event showcased the capabilities of the new … Read more
A bewildering number of shiny galaxies, a purple-orange star nursery and a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way: new images were revealed on Thursday by the European Euclid Space Telescope. It is the second set of images released by the European Space Agency since Euclid launched the first-ever mission to investigate the mysteries of … Read more