A new multimillion-rand telescope in the Karoo will offer astronomers an unprecedented view of the stars. The MeerLICHT instrument in Sutherland will be specifically linked to the MeerKAT radio telescope array near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. Unlike its bigger brother SALT (Southern African Large Telescope), the MeerLICHT is meant …
A new multimillion-rand telescope in the Karoo will offer astronomers an unprecedented view of the stars. The MeerLICHT instrument in Sutherland will be specifically linked to the MeerKAT radio telescope array near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. Unlike its bigger brother SALT (Southern African Large Telescope), the MeerLICHT is meant …
Observations of binary stars containing an accreting black hole or neutron star often show x-ray emission extending to high energies (>10 kilo–electron volts), which is ascribed to an accretion disk corona of energetic particles akin to those seen in the solar corona. Despite their ubiquity, the physical conditions in accretion …
When the Moon’s shadow races across the continental United States on 21 August, researchers will be waiting — in planes, on mountaintops and at other carefully chosen vantage points along the roughly 110-kilometre-wide path of totality. Thanks to the sheer number of observers, solar physicists hope to learn more from …
Giant radio galaxies (GRGs) are one of the largest astrophysical sources in the Universe with an overall projected linear size of ∼0.7 Mpc or more. The last six decades of radio astronomy research has led to the detection of thousands of radio galaxies. However, only ∼300 of them can be …
Rossby waves are a type of global-scale wave that develops in planetary atmospheres, driven by the planet’s rotation. They propagate westward owing to the Coriolis force, and their characterization enables more precise forecasting of weather on Earth. Despite the massive reservoir of rotational energy available in the Sun’s interior and …
After sending a probe to Mars in 2020, China plans to explore three asteroids and land on one of them to conduct scientific research, according to a Chinese asteroid research expert. The "China's Space Activities in 2016" white paper, recently issued by the Information Office of the State Council, also …
Seven small planets whose surfaces could harbour liquid water have been spotted around a nearby dwarf star. If such a configuration is common in planetary systems, our Galaxy could be teeming with Earth-like planets.
1,300 new galaxies uncovered by one of the world's most powerful radio telescope The astronomers working the telescope, fired up 16 of its 64 recently built dishes and almost instantaneously discovered hitherto unseen galaxies in an area of the universe.SKA South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope has uncovered 1,300 new galaxies. …
An international team of astronomers has announced the discovery of a new dwarf planet in our Solar System, finding a distant object beyond Neptune that circles the Sun in a spectacularly wide orbit. Dubbed 2015 RR245 by the International Astronomical Union while they come up with a better name, the …
Astronomers have discovered the largest planet outside our solar system orbiting two stars, at a distance that would make it potentially habitable for people, scientists announced Monday. A team of NASA astronomers that made the discovery using the Kepler space telescope revealed the findings at a meeting of the American …
Solar magnetism displays a host of variational timescales of which the enigmatic 11-year sunspot cycle is most prominent. Recent work has demonstrated that the sunspot cycle can be explained in terms of the intra- and extra-hemispheric interaction between the overlapping activity bands of the 22-year magnetic polarity cycle. Those activity …
Based on two detectors separated by about 3,000 km and using ultra-stable lasers, a new observatory known as the Advanced LIGO has detected gravitational waves generated by the coalescence of two black holes, that turned into a new black hole with the release of about five solar masses of energy …
Astronomers have discovered the largest known solar system, consisting of a large planet that takes nearly a million years to orbit its star. The gas giant is one trillion kilometres away, making its orbit 140 times wider than Pluto's path around our Sun. Only a handful of extremely wide pairs …
On 25 September, a sensational rumour appeared on Twitter: Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist, reported hearing that the world’s largest gravitational-wave observatory had seen a signal, barely a week after its official re-opening. The rumour had been spreading around physics circles for at least a week. If it is true, and …
India Monday launched its first astronomical observatory Astrosat from the spaceport of Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. "The home-made observatory was launched into space on board the indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle that also carried six satellites, including four U.S. satellites," an official of the state-owned Indian …
Aurorae are detected from all the magnetized planets in our Solar System, including Earth. They are powered by magnetospheric current systems that lead to the precipitation of energetic electrons into the high-latitude regions of the upper atmosphere. In the case of the gas-giant planets, these aurorae include highly polarized radio …
Four small moons—Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra—follow near-circular, near-equatorial orbits around the central ‘binary planet’ comprising Pluto and its large moon, Charon. New observational details of the system have emerged following the discoveries of Kerberos and Styx. Here we report that Styx, Nix and Hydra are tied together by a …
Previous work on possible surface reflectance biosignatures for Earth-like planets has typically focused on analogues to spectral features produced by photosynthetic organisms on Earth, such as the vegetation red edge. Although oxygenic photosynthesis, facilitated by pigments evolved to capture photons, is the dominant metabolism on our planet, pigmentation has evolved …
Astronomers have studied the carbon monoxide in a galaxy over 12 billion light years from Earth and discovered that it's running out of gas, quite literally, and headed for a 'red and dead' future. The galaxy, known as ALESS65, was observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in 2011 …
The end of the world is coming – but not for a while yet. That’s according to a new study indicating that we have 1.75 billion years left until Mother Earth gives up the ghost. Researchers from the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences analysed other planets outside …
