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In two weeks' time, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is going to present the world with new information about our Milky Way. It's anyone's guess what the announcement will be, but based on what we know of their recent efforts, there's reason to get excited – the results being presented are from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, which was responsible for producing the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019. For years now the EHT project has been studying the heart of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which is most likely home to a supermassive black hole...

Before man can cross the vast distances of space, the designs of spacecraft’s sails will be key – striking a delicate balance between mass, strength in addition to reflectivity. Working with NASA, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists have created the fresh material out of silicon in addition to its oxide, silica. The team has figured out that will super-thin structures made of This specific composite can transform infrared light waves into a momentum that will would likely accelerate a probe to 134,000,000 mph. Speeds like This specific can carry a little probe to our closest stellar neighbours, a huddle...

Dr. Marin and Dr. Beluffi begin their latest study by considering the various concepts that have been proposed for making an interstellar journey...also took into account missions that will be launching in the coming years like NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. This probe will reach record-breaking orbital velocities of up to 724,205 km/h, which works out to about 200 km/s (or 0.067% the speed of light). With their baseline for speed and travel time established – 200 km/s and 6300 years – Dr. Marin and Dr. Beluffi then set out to determine the minimum number of people needed to ensure that...

If you thought NASA was playing the long game with its plan to put people on Mars in the 2030s, you haven't seen anything yet. New Scientist has learned that a team at the administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has started planning a mission that would send a spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri system in... 2069. Yes, that's 52 years away, and timed around the 100th anniversary of Apollo 11's trip to the Moon. The probe would look for signs of life around the potentially habitable exoplanet Proxima b, giving humanity a much better look than it could get with observation...

The proposed journey, which was revealed by scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the 2017 Geophysical Union Conference and reported by New Scientist, was born out of a budget mandate to make progress on interstellar travel. Now, NASA is working on technology that, if all goes as planned, could allow a spacecraft to reach ten percent of light speed, and the goal is to have it ready by 2069 with Alpha Centauri in its sights. ... The system is around 4.3 light years from Earth, which essentially makes it a next-door neighbor. If NASA succeeds at achieving ten percent...

Beam-Riding and Sail Stability by Paul Gilster on June 23, 2017 Breakthrough Starshot, the ambitious 30-year plan for launching small interstellar craft to a nearby star, depends critically on the sails that will ride a laser beam to 20 percent of lightspeed. In the essay below, James Benford takes a hard look at where we are now in the matter of sail stability, a subject he and brother Gregory have analyzed in their laboratory work. But as Jim points out, there is a great deal we still don’t know, emphasizing the need for a dedicated test facility in which deep...

In an attempt to leapfrog the planets and vault into the interstellar age, a bevy of scientists and other luminaries from Silicon Valley and beyond, led by Yuri Milner, the Russian philanthropist and Internet entrepreneur, announced a plan on Tuesday to send a fleet of robots no bigger than iPhones to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system, 4.37 light-years away. If it all worked out — a cosmically big “if” that would occur decades and perhaps $10 billion from now — a rocket would deliver a “mother ship” carrying a thousand or so small probes to space. Once in orbit,...

Astronomers are preparing to announce the discovery of a potentially habitable second Earth orbiting a nearby star, it has been claimed. Last month, sources leaked news that the European Southern Observatory (ESO) had spotted an alien world orbiting Proxima Centauri, our closest stellar neighbour. An anonymous source from the ESO told German publication Der Spiegel the discovery is the closest habitable planet to Earth, which means we could reach it within our lifetime. But the astonishing finding was not officially announced, sparking furious speculation that the second Earth has deliberately been kept a secret. Now the ESO is set to...

So long as the world is entertaining worst-case scenarios, the media does Americans no favors in omitting that Iran-Hezbollah has for years prepared to strike in their own hometowns. Weirdly absent from much of the professional speculation about where and how Iran will exact its promised “severe revenge” for the U.S. drone strike killing of Quds Force Gen. Qassem Suleimani is mention of the dead man’s highly suggestive hint. During a time of intense saber rattling between Iran and President Donald Trump in July 2018, Suleimani gave a speech during which he called out the American president: “Mr. Gambler, Trump!...

A new exoplanet only 4.2 light years away would prove that there's plenty left to discover in our own cosmic backyard. Scientists have found evidence of a new exoplanet candidate orbiting our closest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri. This exoplanet candidate, Proxima c, likely has a mass six times that of Earth. But it's unlikely that life would survive on the planet, given its frigid temperatures. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The red dwarf star Proxima Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor; the star system is a measly 4.2 light years from Earth and can be seen with the naked eye. Because of this proximity,...

A unique “double asteroid” was photographed by a powerful telescope as it whizzed by Earth last month at over 43,000 mph. The asteroid, classified as 1999 KW4, is made up of two components — a larger body orbited by a smaller one separated by about 1.6 miles. It got as close as 3.2 million miles to Earth on May 25 — about 14 times the distance from Earth to the Moon, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a news release Monday. The double asteroid, which has an orbit well known to scientists, is not an impact threat to Earth,...

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released a stunning collection of images of the circumstellar discs that surround young stars. The images were captured with the SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) instrument on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. We’ve been looking at images of circumstellar disks for quite some time, but this collection reveals the fascinating variety of shapes an sizes that these disks can take.

Astronomers have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets that orbit a star called HD 10180, which is much like our own Sun.

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer, astronomers from France and Brazil have detected a huge cloud of dust around a star. This observation is further evidence for the theory that such stellar puffs are the cause of the repeated extreme dimming of the star... R Coronae Borealis stars are supergiants exhibiting erratic variability... R Coronae Borealis stars can see their apparent brightness unpredictably decline to a thousandth of their nominal value within a few weeks, with the return to normal light levels being much slower. It has been accepted for decades that such fading could be due to obscuration of...

The small, red object tested the Yepun unit to its limits Astronomers working in Chile think they may have taken the first direct image of a planet circling another star. The star, called 2M1207, is 230 light-years away and is very much smaller and fainter than our own Sun. The pictured companion is 100 times fainter still and tested the technical limits of the Yepun telescope. Astronomer Christophe Dumas said: "It is a strange feeling that it may indeed be the first planetary system beyond our own ever imaged." The thrill of seeing this faint source of light in...

Peering into a giant molecular cloud in the Milky Way galaxy - known as W49 - astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have discovered a whole new population of very massive newborn stars. This research was presented at the International Astronomical Union's 25th General Assembly held in Sydney, Australia, by ESO-scientist Joao Alves. With the help of infrared images obtained during a period of excellent observing conditions with the ESO 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at the La Silla Observatory (Chile), the astronomers looked deep into this molecular cloud and discovered four massive stellar clusters, with hot and energetic...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 August 4 Spiral Galaxy NGC 2997 from VLT Credit: FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT, ESO Explanation: NGC 2997 is a grand design spiral galaxy. Its small nucleus and sprawling spiral arms give it a type Sc designation. NGC 2997, pictured above, is speeding away from us at about 1100 kilometers per second, which would place it at about 55 million light years distant, given current estimates of the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 9 A Chamaeleon Sky Credit: FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO Explanation: A photogenic group of nebulae can be found toward Chamaeleon, a constellation visible predominantly in skies south of the Earth's equator. Celestial objects visible there include the blue reflection nebulas highlighted by thin dust surrounding the bright stars in the above image center. Toward the top and lower right, dark molecular clouds laced with...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 7 Portrait of an Infant Solar System Credit: N. Grosso (MPE), et al., European Southern Observatory Explanation: This infant solar system was discovered posing along the lonely outskirts of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud, a star forming region 500 light-years from Earth. Enlarged in this infrared false-color portrait from the European Southern Observatory's Antu telescope, the dark dusty disk of planet-forming material lies edge-on, neatly dividing...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 April 14 RX J185635-375: Candidate Quark Star Picture Credit: M. van Kerkwijk (Institute of Astronomy, Utrecht), S. Kulkarni (Caltech), VLT Kueyen, ESO Explanation: Why is RJX J185635-375 so cool and so dim? Previously, this compact star held claim to being the closest neutron star -- only 150 light-years away. Now new observations and analysis indicate not only a cool temperature for RXJ J185635-375, pictured above, but also...