Astronomy 2023, March

New observations made it possible to find the temperature boundary separating red dwarfs and "failed stars" - brown dwarfs

2021 PH27 manages to make a full orbit in just 113 of our days, either moving away from the Sun further than Venus, then converging closer to Mercury

Astronomers know many details about the universe. However, that part of it that can be considered our home "city" - the Milky Way - keeps a disproportionate amount of mysteries. It is difficult to study Moscow while standing on Red Square: the structure of the metropolis is more noticeable from a bird's eye view. Therefore, the discovery of the first rupture in the spiral arm of the Galaxy can be called a real scientific sensation. The nature of this formation is completely incomprehensible, which is why its observation is doubly interesting

How well do you understand the history of Mars exploration? Naked Science has prepared questions on some aspects of the study and cultural influence of the fourth planet from the Sun

American researchers believe that the cosmic body that killed the dinosaurs flew to Earth from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid was one of the so-called dark celestial bodies

The probability of a 500-meter asteroid falling to Earth is greatest in 2182 - however, even then it will not even reach one hundredth of a percent

Closely approaching the Sun, the asteroid Phaeton heats up, and in its depth sodium begins to evaporate, which makes it brighter and makes it eject debris

With the help of the ALMA telescope, scientists have carried out accurate temperature measurements on the surface of the asteroid Psyche, where the space probe will soon go

New images of the L 98-59 system showed that one of its planets is completely covered with water, while life may appear on the other, and at the same time set a record for observing exoplanets

The wind was unable to trap hot gases at the poles of the gas giant, allowing the auroras to heat up its entire atmosphere

By the standards of the stars, the Sun is now "a moderately plump star in its prime." But in order to thoroughly understand its evolution and try to predict future development, scientists need to find out what such bodies were at earlier stages of development. Observations of young stars of the same type and, of course, modeling

Scientists have shown that the lunar magnetosphere lasted only about 500 million years, and the later magnetic rocks, which are found on the satellite, appeared without its participation in the plasma of meteorite impacts

White dwarf LP 40-365 survived a supernova explosion and was thrown away: now it rushes away from the Galaxy at high speed and at the same time slowly rotates

The study of the mysterious corona of a black hole, formed by X-rays, presented an interesting discovery. Space telescopes XMM-Newton and NuSTAR were able to "see" the light reflected by matter just behind the incredibly massive object. And although this once again confirms the general theory of relativity, scientists have received almost no new data about the main object of research

The exoplanet COCONUTS-2b has become the closest to us of all that could be observed directly, and the farthest from its own star

Unique observations made it possible to examine the layered and turbulent atmosphere of the planet "super-Jupiter" using the example of a neighboring brown dwarf

Scientists have long suspected the presence of an extremely rarefied atmosphere in this huge natural satellite of Jupiter. Until recently, it was assumed that it consists of oxygen, which is knocked out by charged particles from the icy surface of Ganymede. New data show that there is another mechanism for replenishing its gas envelope with matter - in the process of sublimation of water as a result of heating by sunlight

The space fairy tale-epic "Star Wars", after its appearance more than 40 years ago, has become not only a unique cultural phenomenon, but also an interesting prophecy in the field of astronomy. Only at the beginning of the 21st century did scientists find several exoplanets located in systems of double stars, just like Tatooine, where Anakin Skywalker was born. True, until recently, the mechanism of the emergence of such massive objects remained a mystery - after all, one of the luminaries should have literally scattered the matter against

The project is named after Galileo Galilei, an Italian Renaissance scientist who used a telescope he developed to observe astronomical objects such as Jupiter's moons, Earth's moon craters and Saturn's rings. The program has received $ 1.75 million in funding so far, but its head professor Avi Loeb hopes for more

Astronomers have studied a short gamma-ray burst 200826A and linked it to a supernova that exploded billions of light years away

Radio telescopes have conducted observations of the near-planetary disk of the gas giant PDS 70c - an accumulation of gas and dust, where its future satellites are born

The recent discovery of the biomarker phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus has sparked a lot of controversy - is there life there? Not everything is clear with this yet. But it is definitely clear that Roscosmos is learning to use HYIP for PR purposes: the state corporation has already offered to take a sample of the substance of this planet. To do this, she will abandon the joint project with NASA "Venus-D" ("D" means "Long-lived") and replace it with "hers." But is there any reason for such a rush? What is the phosphine in the clouds of the second planet really talking about? And, most importantly, with

Scientists have mastered many ways to study the universe. One of them is based on observing the behavior of light passing near massive objects, and is called "gravitational lensing". And if we ever see in detail the surfaces of distant planets, then, most likely, thanks to him

Astronomy lessons returned to Russian schools in 2018. During the time this science was an optional subject, many events took place in it, not all of which were reflected in textbooks. In addition, many interesting facts have not been mentioned in them before

In June 2020, Canadian astronomers calculated that there could be five billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way orbiting Sun-like stars. However, this is only the visible part of the iceberg of habitable planets. The point is not only that there are more of them around stars of other types: the very conditions on exoplanets in other systems can be much more favorable for life than ours. Let's try to understand why

In a picturesque mountainous area, just 40 kilometers from Yerevan, near the villages of Orgov and Tegher, there is the world's first radio-optical telescope, known in scientific circles as ROT-54 / 2.6. It was designed and created by the brilliant scientist, radiophysicist and engineer Paris Heruni, in whose honor the instrument is called the Heruni mirror telescope

Ever since the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, was discovered, the hunt for life outside the solar system has begun. With the development of technology and science, search methods also change. So, astrobiology today has become a flagship in the search for signs of life in distant worlds. Today, when scientific articles about certain discoveries appear almost every day, there is nothing surprising in the unification of seemingly different disciplines. Thus, astrobiology is a relatively young branch in science, Op

Naked Science has a unique opportunity to chat with Sean Carroll. In this interview, he shared his views on some of the recent discoveries in the fields of dark matter, dark energy, quantum mechanics and the universe itself

New research has confirmed that the Voyager 2 probe has emerged from the heliosphere. However, the real news is again obscured by fictional: it is often written that Voyager-2 and Vodyazher-1 left the solar system. Let's figure out why this is not so and what is wrong with a deception lasting 30 thousand years

In 1989, Soviet astronomers concluded that asteroids have satellites. This was the fourth discovery of a new class of objects in the solar system in the history of astronomy. It changed our understanding of how the moon was formed, the satellites of other planets - and the system as a whole. However, history has a sense of humor: almost no one knows about this discovery of Soviet astronomers. Naked Science is the first media outlet to try to fill this gap, including for the first time to publish an electronic copy of

The lunar surface turned out to be rich in carbon, a relatively light element that could not have survived in the material of the Earth's satellite if it had formed after the collision with Theia. This means that neither this hypothetical planet, nor the very mega-impact of the Earth with it has never happened. The moon, on the other hand, arose by a fundamentally different mechanism, discovered in 2007 by physicist Nikolai Gorkav. Moreover, in such a scenario, this celestial body is more suitable for colonization by earthlings. We figure out why

Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov at the end of August 2019 discovered an alien comet originating from another planetary system. Now it was officially recognized, and soon Borisov's comet will approach the Earth

American astronomers, together with colleagues from other countries, have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet in the Southern Hemisphere that orbits its star every 3.14 days

A Russian-European team of scientists has discovered a possible new type of stars, born in the process of a catastrophic collision of white dwarfs

Scientists have found a planet that makes one revolution around its star in just 18 hours

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown type of luminary that is of great interest to science

It is generally accepted that stars produce most of the light in the universe, while planets, satellites, dust and gas reflect it. However, it turned out that the stars also reflect light - we did not notice this before, since the amount of this reflected light is negligible

Astronomers working with data from the TESS exoplanetary telescope have created a unique catalog of stars to help locate potentially habitable planets in their orbits

Using data from the ESA Gaia telescope, astronomers in Brazil have discovered three new open clusters in the Milky Way. The clusters designated UFMG 1, UFMG 2 and UFMG 3 have been discovered in the Sagittarius arm

Researchers have discovered a curious group of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, shrouded in iron dust