[Jillian's blog] Anatomy of an Exosolar System
A good chunk of the exoplanets that we’ve detected so far are huge, Jupiter-sized and larger. A lot of them are orbiting their stars at very short distances – it might seem strange to think that...
View Article[Umberto's blog] Who cares about gravity?
Numerical simulation of two merging black holes performed by the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany: what this rendition shows through colors is the degree of perturbation of the spacetime fabric,...
View Article[Alexe's -est Blog] Darkest
Welcome back to the -EST blog! This is where I chat about some of the astronomical superlatives that go the extra distance to make our universe so interesting and awesome. In this post I’m going to...
View Article[Maggie's blog] Farthest
I was inspired to pick up where Alexe left off with her “est” blogs, and write about “Farthest,” because of some recent, cool, astronomical news. There was recently excitement over a Hubble Space...
View ArticleDoing Astronomy With Our Eyes Closed
In space, no one can hear you scream. Any sci-fi buff worth their dilithium crystals knows why: sound requires a medium such as air or water in which to propagate and empty space is well, empty. But...
View Article100 Years of General Relativity
This week is the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. On November 25, 1915, Einstein published the field equations of gravity which are the heart of the general relativity....
View ArticleTesting General Relativity
Everyone seems to want to take shot at discrediting Einstein and his theories. I used to volunteer to answer questions for an Ask an Astrophysicist service, and nearly every week I would get a question...
View ArticleChasing Unicorns
Although the incident happened nearly ten years ago, I still remember it clearly. I was a newly-minted NASA scientist and was attending a workshop about future space-based scientific facilities. At a...
View ArticleRelease the beasts!
Captain A. G. Lamplugh, a British pilot from the early days of aviation once famously said “Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly...
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