6+ day, 4+ hour ago   (134+ words) Separately, a coronagraph — a device that obstructs the star’s light to enable direct imaging of faint planets and protoplanetary disks around stars — will be tested onboard. For the Roman mission, this primarily constitutes a technological experiment aimed at refining the…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (366+ words) A recent examination of a 17th-century manuscript indicates that the renowned astronomer and engineer Galileo Galilei may have been engaging in experiments with the development of sophisticated four-lens telescopes as early as the early 1630s. This positions him among the pioneers…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (405+ words) Venus’s surface is heated to hundreds of degrees, and there is no question of organic matter existing there. Conversely, the cloud layer at an altitude of 48 to 64 kilometers maintains relatively moderate temperatures. It consists of droplets of sulfuric acid, which…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (781+ words) The small Pandora satellite became the first spacecraft launched into orbit under the Astrophysics Pioneers program. Its concept is based on small missions with short development cycles and modest budgets, while accepting a higher-than-usual probability of failure. The launch took…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago   (533+ words) NASA astronomers have proposed combining an orbital screen for blocking starlight with the largest ground-based telescopes. This should make it possible to directly observe rocky exoplanets in the optical range by the end of the decade. A ground-based telescope would…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago   (336+ words) Researchers have for the first time detected toroidal magnetic fields that for decades had remained a theoretical explanation of how young stars launch powerful jets of gas. The observations were carried out using the ALMA radio telescope array. When a…...