Astronomy

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… at about 2 billion light years away from Earth lies radio-galaxy Hercules A, also known as 3C 348. At a first glance it looks just like another massive galaxy out there – at least when looking in the visible spectrum. In the radio wavelengths however, [...]

This past weekend, the last American space shuttle, the Endeavour, made its final trip through the streets of Los Angeles to the California Science Center. The trip lasted from midnight Friday morning until midday Sunday as the shuttle traveled at the high speeds of two miles per hour.  There were many delays and the shuttle [...]

Panaji (Goa-India), Dec 12, 2011: Hunt for finding the hypothetical massive elementary particle, the Higgs boson, popularly known as ‘The God Particle’. Exploring the pulls and pressures among the planets and the dark matter above. Building capacities to explore hitherto lesser known Universe to benefit humanity using science and technology tools through global collaborative efforts. [...]

The northern hemisphere is accustomed enough to the dazzling Aurora Borealis phenomena, an event which occurs when charged particles collide with atoms from the extreme latitude atmosphere. However, yesterday almost the whole North American continent was bewildered by an incredible spectacle of lights, as Aurora Borealis  apparitions were reported as far south as Kansas, Arkansas [...]

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, is a definite oddball of the solar system. It has its axis titled by a whopping 98 degrees, which makes it orbit on its side. The general accepted theory is that a big impact with an object several times the size that of the Earth nodged its axis [...]

This Monday (June 27), an asteroid the size of a bus just buzzed our planet after a flyby which brought it closer to Earth than most satellites. Dubbed asteroid 2011 MD, it was first spotted by MIT’s Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program just last week on June 22, but there never was any [...]

Launched in 1997 on a mission to study Saturn and its satellites, the Casisni spacecraft reached the system in 2004. Since then it has provided numerous invaluable scientific findings regarding the second largest planet in our solar system, and other important scientific findings alike. One such finding was detailed in a recently published study, which [...]

The planet in case is 55 Cancri e, and it’s 60 per cent larger in diameter than Earth but eight times as massive, which makes it twice as dense as Earth, and almost as dense as lead. Earth like rocky planets   Generally speaking, planets come in two flavours: rocky earth-like planets, or gas giants [...]

On the 28th of March the Swift telescope observed a peculiar gamma-ray blast in a distant corner of the visible universe, some 3.8 billion light years away, bewildered astronomers around the world. The powerful blast is theoretically caused, scientists say, by a black hole located in the center of the distant galaxy whose gravity tore [...]

It’s March 19 ladies and gentlemen, so you should probably know by now about tonight’s supermoon; but what makes it so super ? Well, tonight’s full moon will almost coincide with the moon’s arrival at the perigee point – which makes it a supermoon ? Actually, the moon will be at a greater distance from [...]