Astronomy (RSS)

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of photographing the moon

The best way to see the August supermoons in Australia Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

With two supermoons rising in August 2023, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try to get an Instagram-worthy photograph, but unfortunately getting a great photo of the moon is really challenging. Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Continue reading...

Why is the Cigar Galaxy billowing red smoke?

Detecting the permanent imprints left by colliding black holes would reveal a universe saturated with infinite symmetries – and narrow the possibilities for a theory of quantum gravity.

The monsters that live on the Sun are not like us.

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of photographing the moon

Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

With the August 2023 supermoon rising tonight, also known as a sturgeon full moon, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try to get an Instagram-worthy photograph, but unfortunately getting a great photo of the moon is really challenging. Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station with more than 8,200 pounds of NASA science investigations and cargo after launching at 8:31 p.m. EDT Tuesday from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

After accidentally turning the Voyager 2 spacecraft away from Earth and losing contact with it, NASA engineers have now heard a “heartbeat signal” that shows it is still okay

Could we bore a hole through the centre of Earth? What would it be like to fling yourself through it? The Dead Planets Society podcast digs deep into the potential hazards

NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug. 8, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to provide Artemis II mission preparations and crew training updates. Artemis II will send a crew of four astronauts on a journey around the Moon and bring them back safely, paving the way for future long-term human exploration missio

Headquarters will remain in Colorado rather than relocating to Alabama, as the Trump administration had planned Joe Biden has decided to keep US space command headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-ditch decision by the administration of his presidential predecessor Donald Trump to move it to Alabama while also ending months of politically fueled debate, according to senior federal officials. The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of space command, Gen James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to air force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move. Continue reading...

A new analysis of small flecks in meteorites calculates the age of the solar system as 4.5684 billion years old, rather than 4.5673 billion

Carbonic acid, an important component of amino acids, has been seen in a cloud of gas near the centre of the Milky Way, which could help us explain how life came to be on Earth

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of photographing the moon

Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

With the August 2023 supermoon rising tonight, also known as a sturgeon full moon, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try to get an Instagram-worthy photograph, but unfortunately getting a great photo of the moon is really challenging. Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

The comic takes a close look at Earth’s celestial near neighbour. Plus: everything you wanted to know about heat pumps. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading...

Why is Phobos so dark?

Dish in Canberra, Australia, deployed to find interstellar spacecraft after flight control pointed its antenna away from Earth Nasa is listening for any peep from Voyager 2 after it lost contact with the spacecraft billions of miles away. Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space, Voyager 2 has been out of touch ever since flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command more than a week ago that tilted its antenna away from Earth. The spacecraft’s antenna shifted a mere 2%, but it was enough to cut communications. Continue reading...

Headlines about alien flu from outer space exaggerate the risk of extraterrestrial microbes but we still need to be careful about taking our own germs off-planet, says astrophysicist Erika Nesvold

NASA and Boeing will host a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 7, to provide an update on the first astronaut flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner to and from the International Space Station.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope launched on 1 July, and now it has delivered its first stunning pictures of stars and galaxies across the cosmos

NASA will highlight groundbreaking discoveries, benefits for humanity, and how the agency and its commercial and international partners are maximizing research and development aboard the International Space Station at the 12th annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference.

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of photographing the moon

Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

With the August 2023 supermoon rising, also known as a sturgeon full moon, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try to get an Instagram-worthy photograph, but unfortunately getting a great photo of the moon is really challenging. Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

The moon will be 222,000 miles from Earth on Tuesday Look out for the full moon this week on 1 August because it is a supermoon. The moon orbits Earth in a slightly elliptical orbit, meaning that sometimes it is a little closer to Earth and sometimes a little further away. A supermoon takes place when a full moon occurs near the Moon’s closest orbital point to Earth. Continue reading...

Admire the beauty but fear the beast.

Particles from asteroids and comets lie untouched for years, providing a time capsule of activity As they clamber up cathedral walls wearing vacuum cleaner backpacks, the researchers look more like ghostbusters than planetary scientists. But for the team at the University of Kent, the equipment is crucial for collecting cosmic dust that becomes stranded on the ancient roofs after falling to Earth from space. Continue reading...

Bright sunlight glints as long dark shadows mark this image of the