Images of exoplanets are extremely uncommon, but even more rare is an image of such a planet as part of a greater solar system like ours. Astronomers, however, have just shared one such photo captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. The picture of TYC 8998-760-1, located approximately 300 light years from Earth, reveals “a Sun-like star, orbited by multiple exoplanets.” This set-up is remarkably …
Research astronomer Varoujan Gorjian (whose team at NASA is called Structure of the Universe Group) explains Black Holes to five different individuals whose understanding exists at five different levels: a five-year old, a teenager, a grad student studying astronomy, and an expert. In the fascinating video for WIRED, super-personable Gorjian begins by explaining how gravity works and ends up discussing low-luminosity active galactic nuclei. While …
Beginning with some of civilization’s first sketches of objects in the sky and ending with some of our most high-definition satellite imagery, Sun and Moon is a thrilling catalog of important cosmic discoveries. Assembled by Mark Holborn and published by Phaidon, the book presents how we’ve used photography and cartography to explore space and time (and our ever-changing understanding of them) over thousands of years. …
