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Articles on Astronomy

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An artist’s impression shows the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. ESO/M. Kornmesser

Say hello to the Earth’s nearest exoplanet neighbour: Proxima Centauri b

Astronomers have found an Earth-like planet orbiting our nearest neighbour, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. So any chance that planet may be habitable?
We can all reach for the stars in The Milky Way over Western Australia. Flickr/HuiChieh

We should encourage boys and girls to reach for the stars

The drive the get more women involved in science should start at an early age. But as one space researcher found out, girls can get nudged out of science at school.
The 500-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world. NAOC

How CSIRO is turbocharging the world’s largest radio telescopes

You can’t just buy a radio telescope receiver off the shelf. So CSIRO has been hard at work building receivers for the world’s largest telescopes using the very latest technology.
An illustration showing the merger of two black holes and the gravitational waves that ripple outward. LIGO/T. Pyle

Second detection heralds the era of gravitational wave astronomy

The observation of gravitational waves from a second black hole merger implies there are many more black holes in the universe than scientists had previously anticipated.
An artists’s impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. ESO/M. Kornmesser

Explainer: How to find an exoplanet (part 2)

A look at some of the more obscure methods astronomers use to detect planets around other stars, in the second of a two-part series on finding world’s elsewhere in the universe.
The new discovery: The C-shaped “wide angle tail galaxy” (pink) surrounded by the galaxies of the Matorny-Terentev cluster (white). Julie Banfield

How citizen scientists discovered a giant cluster of galaxies

The find by citizen scientists of at least 40 galaxies in a cluster more than a billion light years away is the astronomical equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.
In the Exoplanet Era, we are learning that planets abound in the cosmos. ESO/M. Kornmesser

Explainer: How to find an exoplanet (part 1)

Astronomers have discovered more than 3,000 planets around other stars, so far. In the first of a two-part series we look at how they find world’s elsewhere in the universe.
There are two broad ways to measure the expansion of the universe. One is based on the cosmic microwave background, shown here, along with our own galaxy viewed in microwave wavelengths. ESA, HFI & LFI consortia (2010)

From dark gravity to phantom energy: what’s driving the expansion of the universe?

The universe is expanding faster than expected, but we don’t know what’s driving it. Here are a few of the possible explanations, from dark energy to a modification of general relativity.
Artist’s rendition of one of the billions of rocky exoplanets in our galaxy. Did life once exist on its surface? NASA/JPL-Caltech

RIP E.T. – alien life on most exoplanets dies young

Complex life may be rare in the universe because most planets become either too hot or too cold before life has a chance to get a foothold. This might explain why we have yet to bump into E.T.

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