Astronomy

Space largely seems quite empty! Yet even in the dark voids of the cosmos, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are streaming through space. The rays contain 10 million times as much energy as the Large Hadron Collider can produce! The origin of the rays though is still the source of many a scientific debate but they are thought to be coming from some of the most energetic events in the universe. A new paper suggests the rays may be linked to magnetic turbulence, coming from regions where magnetic fields get tangled and twisted up.  Cosmic rays are high-energy particles, typically protons and atomic nuclei. They travel at speeds near the speed of light and are thought to come from different sources such as the Sun, supernova explosions and other events across the universe. As the rays ...

During December we will be able to start stargazing from earlier in the evenings, weather permitting of course. This means that on clear nights we get a view of more stars and objects in the night sky; but it is better to be prepared for the colder weather (and more than likely rain if you are in Armagh). To help with stargazing we want to leave the city lights behind and find a spot with less light pollution. Then it is helpful to keep phones away to let your eyes adapt to the dark, so you can see more of those stars that appear faint to the naked eye.  The sun will be setting much earlier during this month than in the previous ones, so hopefully that gives us more time to get some stargazing in before bed. Let’s turn our gaze to the sky now and look for some celestial patterns.  Co...

Magnificent NGC 253, the Silver Coin Galaxy in Sculptor. Image: Warren Keller/Telescope Live. Amateur astronomers just love the challenge of checking out those horizon-hugging southern constellations and seeking the deep-sky gems they host. At the time of the year the great southern constellation of Sculptor fits the bill perfectly. Sculptor is the largest of the southern constellations invented ‍by ‍the ‍French ‍astronomer ‍Nicolas ‍Louis ‍de ‍Lacaille, in 1756. Originally ‍named by him ‍’‍l’Atelier ‍du ‍Sculpteur’, ‍the ‍sculptor’s ‍studio, it was shortened to Sculptor in 1845, following a suggestion by John Herschel. From the south of England, the entirety of Sculptor just c...

A Hubble Space Telescope false-colour view (left) of a 100-billion-mile-wide disc of dust around the star Vega. The James Webb Space Telescope (right) resolves the glow of warm dust in a disc halo. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona). In the 1997 movie “Contact,” adapted from Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the lead character, scientist Ellie Arroway (played by actress Jodie Foster), takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega. She emerges inside a snowstorm of debris encircling the star – but no obvious planets are visible. It looks like the filmmakers got it right. A team of astronomers at the University of Arizona, Tucson, used NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes for an unpreced...