Monday, August 4, 2025

Modeling Planet Formation With Water Tornadoes

Image of the experimental setup running a vortex. Credit - S. Schütt (University of Greifswald)

Sometimes the easiest way to understand the physics of a phenomenon is to make a physical model of it. But how do you make a model of a system as large as, say, a protoplanetary disc? One technique, suggested in a recent paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and the University of Griefswald, would be familiar to any grade schooler who took a science class - spin water around in a circle really fast.



Sunday, August 3, 2025

China's Meteoric Rise Into Space

Launch of a Chinese Long March 2F

If you have any doubts about the objectives of the program, just check out their logo: a stylized crescent moon with two footprints in the middle.



The Story of Astrophysics in Five Revolutions

The Story of Astrophysics in Five Revolutions

In the northern hemisphere, we're getting on to enjoying summer time which traditionally includes vacationing. Typically, vacations are a time to pause from work and remember life's possibilities beyond work. Now, perhaps you, the vacationer, want to rekindle a brief fling you had with science or maybe begin a new science tryst. Ersilia Vaudo's book "The Story of Astrophysics in Five Revolutions" could be just the impetus necessary for such a diversion.



Saturday, August 2, 2025

Is Earth Orbit Doomed to be a Billionaire’s Playground?

Jared Isaacman emerges from Resilience on 12 September. (SpaceX/Polaris Dawn)

If you want to get to the moon, you need to spend an enormous amount of resources developing, creating, testing, and deploying a variety of spacecraft and technologies.



Friday, August 1, 2025

The Moon Is Useless, So Let's Preserve It

An Apollo lander on the Moon. Credit: NASA

I don’t think space or lunar tourism is going to be the big draw that transforms the moon into something unrecognizable.



Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Why Land Detection Is Critical for Confirming Exoplanetary Life

Artist’s illustration of “waterworld” exoplanets compared to Earth (far right). (Credit: NASA)

How can identifying land on exoplanets help scientists better understand whether an exoplanet could harbor life? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how identifying land on exoplanets could help dispel waterworld false positives, which occur when the data indicates an exoplanet contains deep oceans (approximately 50 Earth oceans), hence the name “waterworld”. This study has the potential to help scientists develop more efficient methods for classifying exoplanets and their compositions, specifically regarding whether they contain life as we know it, or even as we don’t know it.



How Satellites Are Silencing the Universe

Falcon 9 lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, delivering 60 Starlink satellites to orbit (Credit : US Air Force)

Imagine if every time you turned on your phone, it accidentally jammed radio telescopes trying to detect alien signals. That's essentially what's happening as thousands of internet satellites flood Earth's orbit, creating electronic noise that's drowning out the whispers from black holes, distant galaxies, and the Big Bang itself. A massive new study reveals that our quest to connect every region of the planet is accidentally sabotaging our ability to answer the biggest questions in science and the problem is getting worse with every satellite launch.