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☆ Planet 9: Inside the search for a hidden planet in our solar system
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-04 | by ( Jacopo Prisco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

“It could completely reshape our understanding of the solar system and of other planetary systems, and how we fit into that context. Brown and his colleague, planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin, reported having strong evidence of a hidden planet on the fringes of our solar system. “If you look at these bodies, their lifetimes are tiny compared to the age of the solar system,” Batygin said. “By now, we expected to have found many more of these extreme trans-Neptunian objects,” Sheppard said in an email. Finding a smaller planet would also spark excitement, Rice added, because every solar system planet is immensely useful for extrapolating information about the thousands of comparable exoplanets that researchers are uncovering across the galaxy.

Persons: Mike Brown, Pluto, ”, Brown, Pluto’s, Malena Rice, ” Rice, Konstantin Batygin, Neptune, they’ve, Brown’s, “, we’re, Scott Sheppard, Chadwick Trujillo, Trujillo, ” Brown, Batygin, ” Batygin, Patryk Sofia Lykawka, ” Lykawka, Lykawka, Rice, Hur, Renu Malhotra, Malhotra, Sheppard, ” Sheppard, ” Malhotra, she’s, “ It’s, Sigurd Naess, ” Naess, Vera C, Rubin, That’s Organizations: CNN, Caltech, NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Research, International Astronomical, ESA, Yale University, Getty, California Institute of Technology, Planet Nine, Carnegie Institution for Science, Northern Arizona University, Sheppard, Kindai University, Rice of Yale University, University of Arizona, Survey Telescope, Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, US National Science Foundation, Stanford University, Rubin, Rubin Observatory, Nine Locations: Pasadena , California, AFP, Washington ,, Japan, Neptune, Hawaii, Chile, Norway

☆ Groundbreaking telescope reveals first piece of new cosmic map
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-26 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Astronomers have never detected dark matter, but they believe it makes up about 85% of the total matter in the universe. Meanwhile, the existence of dark energy helps researchers explain why the universe is expanding — and why that expansion is speeding up. A prime example is the European Space Agency’s wide-angle Euclid telescope that launched in 2023 to investigate the riddles of dark energy and dark matter. Euclid this week delivered the first piece of a cosmic map — containing about 100 million stars and galaxies — that will take six years to create. These stunning 3D observations may help scientists see how dark matter warps light and curves space across galaxies.

Persons: Jackie Wattles, I’m, Vera C, Sarah Gillis, John Kraus, Chenyang Cai, Everest, NASA hasn’t, gazers, Ashley Strickland, Katie Hunt Organizations: CNN, ESA, US National Science Foundation, Stanford University, Rubin, SpaceX, SpaceX Polaris, Polaris, NASA, Boeing, CNN Space, Science Locations: Chile, Uzbekistan, Norway, Myanmar, Florida

☆ Vera C. Rubin Observatory: World’s largest digital camera will be a ‘game-changer’ for astronomy
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-23 | by ( Jacopo Prisco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

CNN —On a mountaintop in northern Chile, the world’s largest digital camera is preparing to power up. The expectation is that in this way, Vera Rubin will discover about 17 billion stars and 20 billion galaxies that we’ve never seen before — and that’s only the beginning. “We’re anticipating about 10 million alerts per night coming off the telescope,” Higgs says. “The Vera Rubin Observatory will enable astronomers to map the distribution of dark matter like never before, based on how dark matter bends the path of ordinary starlight — a process known as ‘gravitational lensing,’” Kaiser explains. “After all, it was her seminal work on the detection of dark matter in spiral galaxies in the 1970s that got this pursuit going,” says Natarajan.

Persons: Vera C, —, Vera Rubin, “, Rubin, ”, Clare Higgs, Higgs, Charles Simonyi, Bill Gates, it’s, Olivier Bonin, ” Higgs, “ We’re, There’s, David Kaiser, Kaiser, ” Kaiser, Rubin Obs, Konstantin Batygin, Kate Pattle, “ Rubin, Priyamvada Organizations: CNN, Rubin, Department of Energy’s, Science, US National Science Foundation, Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University in, Accelerator, Survey, Netflix, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nine, California Institute of Technology, of Physics, Astronomy, University College London, Yale University Locations: Chile, Cerro Pachón, Chilean, Santiago, Stanford University in California, California

☆ A Harvard professor is risking his reputation to search for aliens. Tech tycoons are bankrolling his quest.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-08 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +26 min

The Harvard professor's research is bankrolled by tech tycoons "pissed off" at academia's dogma. But this boundary-pushing is exactly why he's backed Loeb's research. AdvertisementDesch, the astrophysicist from Arizona University, posted a critique of Loeb's work on arXiv alleging "multiple fatal flaws with the manuscript's arguments." Asked whether he no longer believes in a possible technological origin for the meteor, Loeb said they need to investigate further. As he plans more extravagant expeditions to prove the origin of the interstellar meteor, Loeb likens his critics to crows pecking at the neck of an eagle.

Persons: Avi Loeb, Loeb, —, Steven Desch, they're, Loeb's, they've, Charles Hoskinson, that's, Anibal Martel, Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking, Lucas Jackson, Oumuamua, Desch, It's, Meech, Hoskinson, Rather, Lane Turner, James Webb, Bill Diamond, Stenzel, AARO, UAPs, Loeb hasn't, Joe Rogan's, Eugene Jhong, Galileo, ", Frank Laukien, Laukien, Charles Alcock, Seth Shostak, Stephen Wolfram, Richard Branson's, Vera, Rubin, Avi Loeb Loeb, what's, Rob McCallum, Mariana Trench, James Cameron, Avi Loeb Hoskinson, spherules, Harvard's Stein Jacobsen, Loeb didn't, Monica Grady, Patricio Gallardo, it's, Diamond, That's Avi, Adam Glanzman Organizations: Harvard, Service, Arizona State University, Netflix, Galileo, Anadolu Agency, Reuters, University of Hawaii, Boston Globe, James Webb Telescope, NASA, SETI Institute, Pew Research Center, Department of Defense, UAP Department of Defense, Jhong, Bruker Corporation, Smithsonian's, for Astrophysics, MIT, Wolfram Research, Harvard University, Survey, US Space Command, Hoskinson, UK's Open University, University of Chicago, Arizona University, U.S . Government, The Washington, Getty, Loeb, Astronomy, Astrophysics Locations: Lexington , Massachusetts, United States, Getty, Loeb's, New York, Cambridge, Massachussetts, UAPs, Colorado, Chile, Papua New Guinea, 2401.09882, IM1

☆ The largest map of the cosmos hints that dark energy is changing. It could prove Einstein wrong and upend a pillar of modern physics.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Jessica Orwig | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

New data from the largest 3-D map of our universe suggests we may be wrong about dark energy. One of the driving forces behind that evolution is also one of our age's biggest mysteries in physics: dark energy. Einstein abandoned the idea as his "greatest blunder" in the 1930s, as astrophysicist Ethan Siegal explains, but a constant dark energy would have vindicated him. "If true, it would be the first real clue we have gotten about the nature of dark energy in 25 years," Adam Riess, a Nobel laureate for his co-discovery of dark energy, told Quanta Magazine. "The idea that dark energy is varying is very natural," Paul Steinhardt, a Princeton University cosmologist, told the magazine.

Persons: —, we're, Michael Levi, Levi, DESI, Marenfeld, Claire Lamman, Albert Einstein's, Einstein, Ethan Siegal, Albert Einstein, Ernst Haas, Adam Riess, Paul Steinhardt, Princeton University cosmologist, Riess, Vera C, Travis Lange, Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell, NASA's Nancy Grace, Arnaud de Mattia, Mattia Organizations: Service, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, American Physical Society, Princeton University, NASA, Rubin, Accelerator, Atomic Energy Commission Locations: Arizona, Princeton , New Jersey

☆ NASA spacecraft closes in on asteroid for head-on collision
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

A NASA spacecraft closed in on an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth. The galactic grand slam was set to occur at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the rock at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). The $325 million mission is the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space. The spacecraft packed a scant 1,260 pounds (570 kilograms), compared with the asteroid's 11 billion pounds (5 billion kilograms). Monday's dramatic action aside, the world must do a better job of identifying the countless space rocks lurking out there, warned the foundation's executive director, Ed Lu, a former astronaut.

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