Space

An astronomer working at the University of Hawaii captured the first ever pictures of a planet forming around a star. In order to do it, he used the 10-metre Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea and a system of mirrors; the main problem with taking pictures such as these ones is that the planet’s star usually […]

While the Earth is steadily being depleted of its natural resources, it might become imperative to look to the sky for alternatives. Studies so far alone has shown that the moon has twenty times more titanium and platinum than anywhere on Earth, along with helium 3, a rare isotope of helium, which is nonexistent on our planet, […]

Another meteor shower draws nearer, as scientists expect it to peak this Friday and Saturday – just before dawn on Oct. 21 and 22. Each October, the Earth passes through a trail of dust left behind by the Halley comet; when some of these particles, most no bigger than grains of sand get caught in […]

Set it went into operation, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope has detected 1873 gamma rays out in space, of which only two thirds have had their sources traced. Typically, gamma rays are huge bursts of energy generated by the collision between two stars or by black holes, however more than 600 discovered blasts still don’t have an explanation […]

Back in 2008, the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft made a fascinating discovery when it found a metres-deep cave in the Sea of Tranquility. Amazed by the find, NASA had its orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) to have in the depth scan of the area, which came back with high res images, like the one above. Scientists believe […]

During these past months, I’ve been receiving some questions regarding the whole doomsday-Elenin comet matter. In case you’re unfamiliar with the topic, the comet in case, discovered in December 2010, has a trajectory that passes quite close to Earth, and so of course, some people started panicking and claiming that the comet will hit us […]