Sudden shrieks of radio waves from deep space keep slamming into our radio telescopes, spattering those instruments’ recordings with confusing data. And now, astronomers are using artificial intelligence to detect those outbursts. Source: https://www.livescience.com/66116-fast-radio-bursts-australia-artificial-intelligence.html
Tag: telescopes
Anatomy of a cosmic seagull
Colourful and wispy, this intriguing collection of objects is known as the Seagull Nebula, named for its resemblance to a gull in flight. Made up of dust, hydrogen, helium and traces of heavier elements, this region is the hot and energetic birthplace of new stars. The remarkable detail captured here by ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) reveals the individual astronomical objects…
When Jupiter and Saturn meet
Jupiter and Saturn have appeared close on our sky’s dome throughout 2019, but they’re due to get even closer in the coming months. Their conjunction will come on December 21, 2020. Here’s how to watch them. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/jupiter-saturn-conjunction-dec-2020…
A new lens for life-searching space telescopes
The University of Arizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory is a world leader in the production of the world’s largest telescope mirrors. In fact, it is currently fabricating mirrors for the largest and most advanced earth-based telescope: The Giant Magellan Telescope. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-08-lens-life-searching-space-telescopes.html…
A closer look at Io’s weird volcanoes
Io’s volcanoes have fascinated scientists since the Voyager 1 spacecraft first discovered them nearly 40 years ago. Now a comprehensive new report – based on ground-based studies – unveils new mysteries about the most volcanically active world in our solar system. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/new-report-ios-enigmatic-volcanoes…
Check out this cool video map of known exoplanets
This short video, just over a minute long, takes you on a journey from 1991, when no exoplanets were known, to today’s 4,003+ known exoplanets. Why the plus? According to the NASA Exoplanet Archive, the number of known exoplanets has already jumped up to 4,031 and counting! Source: https://earthsky.org/space/time-lapse-video-map-exoplanets-2019…
ACEAP 2019: Cerro Pachón and Cerro Tololo
Robert Pettengill reports from the busy ACEAP (Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program) annual trip, happening now in Chile. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/aceap-2019-cerro-pachon-and-cerro-tololo…
Facebook’s Ex-Security Chief Details His ‘Observatory’ for Internet Abuse
Andy Greenberg, writing for Wired: When Alex Stamos describes the challenge of studying the worst problems of mass-scale bad behavior on the internet, he compares it to astronomy. To chart the cosmos, astronomers don’t build their own Hubble telescopes or Arecibo observatories. They concentrate their resources in a few well-situated places and share time on expensive hardware. But when it comes…