Tag: space exploration
Astronomers Accurately Measure the Temperature of Red Supergiant Stars
Red supergiants are a class of star that end their lives in supernova explosions. Their lifecycles are not fully understood, partly due to difficulties in measuring their temperatures. For the first time, astronomers develop an accurate method to determine the surface temperatures of red supergiants.
ESO telescope reveals what could be the smallest dwarf planet yet in the solar system
Astronomers using ESO's SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that the asteroid Hygiea could be classified as a dwarf planet.
Dead planets can ‘broadcast’ for up to a billion years
Astronomers are planning to hunt for cores of exoplanets around white dwarf stars by ‘tuning in’ to the radio waves that they emit.
Astronomers capture first image of a black hole
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) operates a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes that are linked together.
Saturn hasn’t always had rings
One of the last acts of NASA's Cassini spacecraft before its death plunge into Saturn's hydrogen and helium atmosphere was to coast between the planet and its rings and let them tug it around, essentially acting as a gravity probe.
Sapphires and rubies in the sky
21 light years away from us in the constellation Cassiopeia, a planet orbits its star with a year that is just three days long. Its name is HD219134 b. With a mass almost five times that of Earth it is a so-called "super-Earth".