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Of the Unicorn

Chasing Unicorns

Although the incident happened nearly ten years ago, I still remember it clearly.  I was a newly-minted NASA scientist and was attending a workshop about future space-based scientific facilities. At a coffee break I started chatting with some other young scientists, one of whom asked what I worked on. I … Continue Reading →

Modeling Gravity Waves

Doing Astronomy With Our Eyes Closed

  • By Ira Thorpe
  • November 16, 2015
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In space, no one can hear you scream. Any sci-fi buff worth their dilithium crystals knows why: sound requires a medium such as air or water in which to propagate and empty space is well, empty. But what if I told you that there are waves that can travel through … Continue Reading →

Black Hole Dark Matter Simulations

Black Hole Laboratories for Dark Matter

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • August 5, 2015
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There is a lot we don’t know about dark matter – like what exactly it is. Because of this, we are always looking for ways to study it. It turns out that black holes might make the perfect laboratory environment for better understanding both black holes and the nature of … Continue Reading →

More “Voorwerps”?

Back in 2010, Koji wrote a guest blog for us on Hanny’s Voorwerp. What is this? Back in 2007, a Dutch woman named Hanny van Arkel discovered an odd and until then unclassified ghostly gaseous structure near the galaxy IC 2497 while using the citizen science site, Galaxy Zoo. The … Continue Reading →

Coma Niddy

Coma Niddy Brings Us New Sci Tunes

Our friend, science rapper Coma Niddy, recently released a rap about dark energy, and we thought we would share it with you. Dark energy is one of the big mysteries in current astrophysics. We know it affects the universe’s expansion and we know that 68% of the universe is made … Continue Reading →

Can You Hear a Black Hole?

Recently I came across this story – this ten year old story – on Tumblr. Sept. 9, 2003: Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found, for the first time, sound waves from a supermassive black hole. The “note” is the deepest ever detected from any object in our Universe. … Continue Reading →

American Astronomical Society wrap-up

Well, it happened again, guys!  The 222nd biannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held at the Indiana Convention Center, that’s what. For those of you not in the loop, the American Astronomical Society is a professional society for astronomers devoted to promoting astronomy and like sciences as well … Continue Reading →

Teaming Up with Hubble to Create Beauty

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • February 7, 2013
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Capturing the beauty of this galaxy took a team of people – and to understand the galaxy takes a team of missions. This gorgeous image of galaxy M106 was created by renowned astro-photographer Robert Gendler, who retrieved archival Hubble images to assemble a mosaic of the center of the galaxy. … Continue Reading →

American Astronomical Society wrap-up

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • January 18, 2013
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Each December, there’s a bit of a lull in astronomy news. Not only do the holidays slow things down, but astronomers are also getting ready for the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in January. These AAS meetings (there’s also a summer meeting in May or June) are … Continue Reading →

Darkest

Darkest

Welcome back to the -EST blog! This is where I chat about some of the astronomical superlatives that go the extra distance to make our universe so interesting and awesome. In this post I’m going to talk about a pretty popular topic, the darkest things in our universe – black … Continue Reading →

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