CosmoQuestX

JWST and the 30 Days of Terror

With the successful launch of the JWST, the focus turns to the complicated process of unfurling the sunshield and unfolding the mirror. We’ll look at just where NASA is in the process and how muc...

Rocket Roundup for January 5th 2022

Summary: The Rocket Roundup team takes a look back at the rockets that launched in 2021, with a review of the statistics and some highlights (including that one telescope that could have ruined Chr...

A Look Back at Our Favorite 2021 Stories

Dr. Pamela and Beth each picked their three favorite stories from 2021, including news from Mars and Pluto and about distant comets and undead white dwarf stars. Plus, we interview Dr. Jackie Faher...

Rocket Roundup for December 22, 2021

This week on Rocket Roundup, we have all the Falcon 9 launches! And another Kuaizhou 1A launch failure to wrap up the year. Plus, we look back at the origins of NORAD’s Santa Tracker.

2022-01-02 22:05:42 +0000 UTC View Post

JWST Launch Still Scheduled for Christmas Eve

Dr. Pamela takes a deep dive into her feelings about the JWST, its pending launch, and just what the telescope means to the astronomical community. Plus, general relativity is still true, a huge fi...

Sublimating Nitrogen Responsible for Pluto’s Icy Polygons

New models of sublimating nitrogen show that the process creates enough heat to drive the formation and texture of the polygons in Sputnik Planitia. Plus, black holes, star formation, and an interv...

Office Hours in 25min

Hi Everyone,

This weeks office hours start in about 25min at bit.ly/PatreonOfficeHours.

In love and science,

Pamela

Massive Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica at Risk of Collapse

A team of scientists collected cores and modeled ice cliff failure and found that Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting more quickly than ever and could be at risk of collapse, threatening glob...

Rocket Roundup for December 15, 2021

On Rocket Roundup, launches include the latest from Rocket Lab, a Blue Origin crewed launch, several Chinese launches, and a pair of Russian communication satellites. Plus, this week in rocket hist...

New, Deep Images of Milky Way’s Black Hole Show Stars Moving

Using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, scientists have obtained the deepest and sharpest images of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. They tracked the or...

Discord Benefit

One of the benefits of being a member at the $5 and above level is that you have access to our Discord server. Please come join the conversation!

We have channels for all your interests, incl...

Office Hours in 30 min

Hi Everyone,

I goofed last week and would like to apologize. For several years, Astronomy Cast on Friday and Office Hours on Sunday were at the same time. We moved AC one hour later, and we d...

Overlooked Exoplanet Found by Citizen Scientists

Using data provided by the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project, volunteers found a possible large planet or brown dwarf orbiting its star at a distance of more than 1,600 ast...

Q-balls Knock Matter Into Dominance Over Antimatter After Big Bang

Researchers hypothesize that blobs in post-Big Bang fields of energy, known as Q-balls, could explain how matter came to dominate over antimatter in our Universe, and they plan to use gravitational...

Rocket Roundup for December 8, 2021

In this week’s Rocket Roundup, we have more Starlink, European navigation satellites, a Chinese company launching to orbit again, a large U.S. government satellite, and a sounding rocket from Swe...

40 Hours of Observations Finds No Dark Matter in Galaxy AGC 114905

Astronomers using the Very Large Array in New Mexico spent 40 hours observing galaxy AGC 114905, which seemed to have little to no dark matter in 2019 observations. The new evidence shows there is ...

Lightweight Mars-sized Planet Found in TESS Data

A Mars-sized planet was found just 31 light-years away, orbiting its star every eight hours and having 55 percent the mass of the Earth, leading scientists to conclude it’s mostly made of an iron...

Earth’s Orbital Changes Possibly Influenced Biologic Evolution

An analysis of over nine million samples of coccoliths whose ages span several million years has led scientists to conclude that changes in Earth’s orbit may have influenced changes in the size a...

CosmoQuest Office Hours start in 25

4pm Eastern / 1pm Pacific join me random chat.

bit.ly/PatreonOfficeHours

Cheers,

Pamela

Rocket Roundup for December 1, 2021

During this jam-packed episode of Rocket Roundup, we cover several Chinese launches, SpaceX’s launch of NASA’s DART mission to hit an asteroid, and Russia’s launch of a military satellite. Pl...

301 Exoplanets Added to Kepler Mission’s Total via Deep Learning

Using a new deep neural network called ExoMiner, scientists have added 301 exoplanets to the Kepler mission’s already enormous total of 4,569 confirmed planets. Plus, another gravitational lens, ...

ALMA Data Helps Confirm Mechanism Behind Gas Stripping of Galaxies

A new research project called the Virgo Environment Traced in Carbon Monoxide Survey (VERTICO) used data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to understand just what...

Rocket Roundup for November 17, 2021

On this week’s Rocket Roundup, SpaceX launches NASA astronauts and more Starlink satellites, and Arianespace launches military satellites for France. Plus, this week in rocket history we look bac...

Quasi-satellite of Earth has Lunar-like Material

After five years of observations, researchers have found that the quasi-satellite Kamo’oalewa, which currently orbits the Earth, is similar to a lunar sample collected during the Apollo 14 missio...

2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics

The Decadal Survey was released earlier this month, and we take a look at some of the recommendations. Plus, this week’s What’s Up and a review of the Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 lens.

Po...