Month: September 2019

There are no scales for weighing black holes. Yet astrophysicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have devised a new way for indirectly measuring the mass of a black hole, while also confirming its existence. They tested the new method, reported in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Active galactic nuclei… Continue reading A Black Hole’s Mass

Black holes are singularities, points of infinitely small volume with infinite density. Such incredibly compact objects cause infinite curvature in the fabric of spacetime. Everything that falls into a black hole is sucked toward the singularity. At some distance away from the singularity, the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, which is called “the… Continue reading Sizes of Black Holes

The hellish planet Venus may have had a perfectly habitable environment for 2 to 3 billion years after the planet formed, suggesting life would have had ample time to emerge there, according to a new study.  A study presented at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 by Michael Way of The Goddard Institute for Space Science… Continue reading Could Venus Have Supported Life 700 Million Years Ago?

Astronomers have finally uncovered water vapour in the atmosphere of a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. The find means that liquid water could also exist on the rocky world’s surface, potentially even forming a global ocean. The discovery, made with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, serves as the first detection of… Continue reading Water Vapour on the Habitable-Zone Exoplanet K2-18b

Rain comes in various forms throughout the solar system water on Earth, methane/ethane on Titan and sulfuric acid on Venus. But did you know it also rains on the sun? Huge drops of plasma in the sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, onto the scorching surface.  Mason, a graduate student at The Catholic University of America,… Continue reading It Rains on the Sun, But When And How?

Science fiction writers have long featured terraforming, the process of creating an Earth-like or habitable environment on another planet, in their stories. Scientists themselves have proposed terraforming to enable the long-term colonization of Mars. A solution common to both groups is to release carbon dioxide gas trapped in the Martian surface to thicken the atmosphere… Continue reading Is It Possible To Terraform Mars To Support Life As We Know It?

Solar sails are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. These particles of light have no mass and yet when they impinge on something, they can impart momentum and provide a tiny push. You get shoved by photons every time you step out into the sunshine but their incredibly… Continue reading How Does Solar Sail Work?

Reaching a major milestone, engineers have successfully connected the two halves of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope for the first time at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Redondo Beach, California. Once it reaches space, NASA’s most powerful and complex space telescope will explore the cosmos using infrared light, from planets and moons within our solar system… Continue reading NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

Earth’s magnetic field has flipped many times over the last billion years, according to the geologic record. But only in the past decade have scientists developed and evolved a computer model to demonstrate how these reversals occur. Based on a set of physics equations that describe what scientists believe are the forces that create and… Continue reading Why Does Earth’s Magnetic Field Flip?

Like most planets in our solar system, the Earth has its own magnetic field. Thanks to its largely molten iron core, our planet is, in fact, a bit like a bar magnet. It has a north and south magnetic pole, separate from the geographic poles, with a field connecting the two. This field protects our… Continue reading Magnetic North Is Shifting Fast. But Why?

Geothermal energy is heat derived within the sub-surface of the earth. It is contained in the rocks and fluids beneath the earth’s crust and can be found as far down to the earth’s hot molten rock, magma. Water or steam carry the geothermal energy to the Earth’s surface. Depending on its characteristics, geothermal energy can… Continue reading What Is Geothermal Energy?