EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd interviewed asteroid expert Dr. Richard Binzel of MIT – inventor of the Torino Scale – about asteroid 2024 YR4. Increasing odds of impact Asteroid 2024 YR4 still sits at a 3 on the Torino scale, but its odds of hitting Earth have inched up. Keep in mind that those odds are still … Read more
The current exoplanet census contains 5,832 confirmed candidates, with more than 7,500 still awaiting confirmation. Of those that have been confirmed, most have been gas giants ranging from Neptune-like bodies (1992) to those similar to or many times the size and mass of Jupiter and Saturn (1883). Like the gas giants of the Solar System, … Read more
One of the largest exoplanets to be found orbiting a relatively low-mass star has been discovered, thanks to the way the planet’s gravity drags its star around on its journey through space. The planet is the fourth world to be spotted in data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which was designed to map … Read more
Is it possible to understand the Universe without understanding the largest structures that reside in it? In principle, not likely. In practical terms? Definitely not. Extremely large objects can distort our understanding of the cosmos. Astronomers have found the largest structure in the Universe so far, named Quipu after an Incan measuring system. It contains … Read more
Galavanting through the galaxy far, far away with seemingly effortless literary ease, prolific “Star Wars” author, Alexander Freed has been catapulted to the top tier of sci-fi writers. He is confidently able to navigate far off alien worlds and complex plotlines via their imposing storytelling skills, engaging characters, and vivid descriptions. Freed accumulated an impressive … Read more
The sun, for all its glitz, tends to hide behind a veil of mystery. For instance, its outer atmosphere, the corona, appears to be hotter than its surface — like, way hotter — and scientists aren’t sure why. There’s also a big puzzle concerning how the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles … Read more
The Milky Way has objects to thrill astronomers of all types, from naked-eye observers to those with the biggest camera and telescope setups. Credit: Adrian Bradley I began photographing the Milky Way around 2018, but the hobby took off in earnest for me at the onset of the COVID years as I took myself out … Read more
A rock from space slammed into Mars in February 2021, causing seismic waves that reached NASA’s InSight spacecraft, located 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away. The impact left a 70-foot (21-meter) diameter crater and dented an area nearly a mile wide (1,600 meters). ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), using its Color and Stereo Surface Imaging … Read more
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Tawnya Silloway in Colorado submitted this imgae on January 23, 2025, and wrote: “I was able to photograph many fluffy snowflakes yesterday, but this one stood out because she brought a daisy.” Thank you, Tawnya! Exquisite crystalline snowflakes capture the imagination. But what is the science behind their formation, … Read more
The discovery of a new asteroid this month has turned out to be anything but. In fact, it isn’t even a natural object. The wannabe asteroid, announced on Jan. 2 as 2018 CN41, is actually a Tesla Roadster launched into space years ago by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The company sent the car (with a … Read more