We will be able to take megapixel images of exoplanets by putting telescopes in zones that are 600 to 2000 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun. Getting to 600 times as far away from the Sun we can observe exoplanets in other solar systems when we go the exact opposite direction. We …
We have already directly imaged 322 exoplanets as of February 2020. Young planets that emit infrared light and are far from the glare of the star are the easiest to spot. NASA maintains a list of directly imaged exoplanets. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has taken the first ever image of …
The Solar Orbiter flew within 48 million miles of the Sun and took the closest pictures of the Sun to date. Other spacecraft have been closer, but none have carried Sun-facing imagers. Solar Orbiter carries six imaging instruments, each of which studies a different aspect of the Sun. Normally, the first images from a spacecraft …
Team members of the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft found new evidence that the Moon’s subsurface might be richer in metals, like iron and titanium, than researchers thought. Using Mini-RF, the researchers sought to measure an electrical property within lunar soil piled on crater floors in the Moon’s …
A meter-class telescope with a coronagraph to block solar light, placed in the strong interference region of the solar gravitational lens (SGL), is capable of imaging an exoplanet at a distance of up to 30 parsecs with a few 10 km-scale resolution on its surface. The picture shows results of a simulation of the effects …
If we send telescopes out to 4 light days we can use the gravity of the sun to amplify the power of telescopes by 100 billion times. Although we can build larger telescopes with higher resolution than exists today near to Earth, the telescopes that are sent out to gravitational lensing regions would resolve much …
Xenon Experiments have detected a bunch of energy events in the 1-7 kilovolt data, which could be an indication of dark matter or contamination of their experiments. There are three possibilities for the readings: It could be axions which are particles that theoretically make up dark matter; It could be neutrinos which are particles that …
There may be as many as one Earth-like planet for every five Sun-like stars in the Milky way Galaxy, according to new estimates by University of British Columbia astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler mission. To be considered Earth-like, a planet must be rocky, roughly Earth-sized and orbiting Sun-like (G-type) stars. It also has to …
Breakthrough measurements of exoplanet Proxima B were made with radial velocity measurements of unprecedented precision using ESPRESSO, the Swiss-manufactured spectrograph – the most accurate currently in operation – which is installed on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Proxima b was first detected four years ago by means of an older spectrograph, HARPS – also …
1. Chandra X-Ray Space Telescope – Can Black Hole Tidal Disruptions Leave Remnants? 2. Cosmoquest – A star that had a brush with a giant black hole and lived to tell the tale through exclamations of X-rays 3. The Hill – How the United States plans to make space exploration pay 4. The Hill – …
A new design could enable affordable exploration of Venus and other harsh environments. The Venus surface temperatures near 460°C and pressures of 93 bar have made long-duration surface missions infeasible. The atmosphere is also caustic and has a dense cloud layer resulting in poor topography mapping, requiring either hazard tolerant landing systems with significant mass …