By combining the power of ground-based and space-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered a new brown dwarf—a type of object that lies between a star and a planet—orbiting a small star about 55 light-years from Earth. ...
After Christmas dinner in 2021, our family was glued to the television, watching the nail-biting launch of NASA's US$10 billion (AU$15 billion) James Webb Space Telescope. There had not been such a leap forward in telescope ...
A pair of Sydney Ph.D. students helped sharpen the view of humanity's most powerful space observatory—without leaving Earth. As an indelible reminder of this thrilling result, Louis Desdoigts, now a postdoctoral researcher ...
Phosphine has caused quite a stir in the astronomical world lately. That was largely due to its (still hotly debated) detection in the atmosphere of Venus. While the only known way for phosphine to be created on terrestrial ...
We all need some space sometimes—but it's harder to find than you might think. How far into our universe do we have to go to reach somewhere truly empty?
An instrument is set to improve the detection and direct imaging of planets outside our solar system by harnessing the power of liquid crystals. The Programmable Liquid-crystal Active Coronagraphic Imager for the DAG telescope ...
Brown dwarfs: too small to be stars, too big to be planets.
Phosphorus is one of six key elements necessary for life on Earth. When combined with hydrogen, phosphorus forms the molecule phosphine (PH3), an explosive, highly toxic gas.
Strong Northern Lights-like activity is the standout feature of today's weather report, which is coming at you from a strange, extrasolar world, instead of a standard TV studio. That is thanks to astronomers from Trinity ...
Deep in space, an ancient brown dwarf nicknamed "The Accident" has revealed the first-ever detection of a molecule that scientists have been searching for in planetary atmospheres for decades.
