There are technological ways to hide a planet from intergalactic detection – as well as ways to signal that we’re just sitting here, eager for contact.
Somewhere up there is the road you’re on.
R. Scott Hinks/Wikimedia
Aboriginal people have been using the stars to help remember routes between distant locations, and these routes are still alive in our highway networks today.
Artist’s illustration of Hitomi.
JAXA, Akihiro Ikeshita
Astronomers were looking forward to the first high-res X-ray spectra from space, and all they would tell us about the cosmos. But unknown disaster seems to have befallen the Japanese satellite.
Except for a few blue foreground stars, the stars are part of the Milky Way’s nuclear star cluster, the most massive and densest star cluster in our galaxy.
NASA, ESA, and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA, Acknowledgment: T. Do, A.Ghez (UCLA), V. Bajaj (STScI)
Each fortnight I get the amazing opportunity to speak about my top stories in space on ABC Breakfast News TV but for those of you who hate early mornings I wanted to make sure you got to hear of these…
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) was instrumental in determining the origin of cosmic rays.
HESS
A new study suggests that mysterious high energy cosmic rays might originate from the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.
New Horizons continues to help unravel the icy dwarf planet’s secrets.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
After last summer’s Pluto flyby, the New Horizons spacecraft started sending data back to Earth – at 2 kilobits per second. Here’s some of what scientists have learned so far from that rich, slow cache.
This enhanced colour image shows the traces of carbon on the surface, coloured here in blue.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
The universe looks very different with X-ray vision, revealing some of the most energetic interactions in our galaxy. Japan’s new Hitomi telescope will help us see these wonders.
As the list of known planets beyond our solar system grows, the search for their moons is intensifying. One reason: they might hold the key to finding life elsewhere in the universe.
Beards: powering tech startups since 813 AD.
Wikimedia Commons
It takes something as stupendous as the merger between two black holes to generate detectable gravitational waves. Here’s how such incredible cosmic objects form.
Artist’s impression: Looking back 12.9-billion km towards the sun and the inner solar system from Sedna, one of the recently discovered minor planets in the Kuiper belt.
NASA, ESA and Adolf Schaller
The search for new objects, including new planets, in our solar system has turned up some interesting finds. There have been a few failures over the years too.
The vast expanse of Western Australia is perfect for radio astronomy.
Pete Wheeler, ICRAR
The Murchison Widefield Array sits in remote Western Australia far from noisy civilisation so it can help us understand the universe by tuning into radio waves from the distant cosmos.
Enough! There is a way to end the harassment of women in science.
Shutterstock/Dean Drobot
The public outing of a number of high profile scientists in sexual harassment cases shows the current system of protecting women isn’t working. But there is a solution.
Can a galaxy (like NGC 3810 in this case) have a classical spiral structure and also be already dead?
ESA/Hubble and NASA
Extragalactic astrophysicists want to know how and why galaxies stop forming stars, change their shape and fade away. With help from citizen scientists, they’re figuring it out.
CSIRO’s Compact Array telescope under the Milky Way.
Alex Cherney