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In July of 2015, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced the creation of Breakthrough Listen, a decade-long project that would conduct the largest survey to date for signs of extra-terrestrial communications (ETI). As part of his non-profit organization, Breakthrough Initiatives, this survey would rely on the latest in instrumentation and software to observe the 1,000,000 closest stars and 100 closest galaxies. Using the Green Bank Radio Telescope in West Virginia, the Listen science team at UC Berkeley has been observing distant stars for over a year now. And less than a week ago, they observed 15 Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) coming...

For most of human history, the distant ‘celestial sphere’ was regarded as perfect and unchanging. Stars remained in place, planets moved predictably, and the few rogue comets were viewed as atmospheric phenomena. This began to change with the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe’s observation of the supernova of 1572 – apparently, a new star – and his studies of the Great Comet of 1577, which he proved was actually a distant object. Nonetheless, the impression of permanence is strong. There are very few astronomical objects that noticeably vary to the naked eye: only the brightest comets, novae and supernovae. For observers...

It is one of the most famous, bright stars in our galaxy, known for its strong red tint. And now scientists have used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLTI) to capture the most detailed image of Antares yet. The stunning image reveals a mysterious process­­­­­­­­­­ occurring in Antares' extended atmosphere - which the researchers still cannot explain.

Spat over design of new Chinese telescope goes public By Yongming HuangAug. 11, 2017 , 12:13 PM A deep division among Chinese astronomers over the design of a proposed 12-meter telescope broke into public view this week as statements from competing camps went viral on social media. The dispute centers on whether to adopt a technically ambitious four-mirror design proposed by optical engineers or a conventional three-mirror option favored by astronomers. The stakes are high. It will be China’s largest optical telescope and serve as the workhorse observational facility for several generations. In a 4 August letter to the Chinese...

As the Aug. 21 solar eclipse nears, communities within the path of totality are preparing for masses of people traveling in search of the optimal viewing experience. The expected influx has placed an unprecedented task in front of cities and towns that are unaccustomed to large tourist populations. Places like Hopkinsville, Kentucky, are working to transform their communities to prepare for the event. “This is unlike anything this community has ever seen or will probably ever see again,” Hopkinsville Solar Eclipse Marketing and Events Consultant Brooke Jung said. “We’ve got people coming from 42 different states and 18 different countries.”...

The peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower is peaking this weekend! According to NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke, the Perseids are perhaps the most popular meteor shower of the year. Typical rates are about 80 meteors an hour, but in outburst years (such as in 2016) the rate can be between 150-200 meteors an hour. The meteor shower's actual peak is around 1 p.m. EDT Aug. 12, which means that the night before and the night after will both have good rates; Cooke said the show would be slightly better in the predawn hours of Aug. 12, but that there'd...

When the sun came up on May 28 in the year 585 BCE, the Medes and Lydians were still at war. They had been at each other’s throats for years, and it looked like there was no end in sight for their conflict. But something extraordinary happened on the battlefield that day, which changed everything. This episode also features an interview with Dr. Fred Espenak, an astrophysicist, and scientist emeritus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Last week, a team of astronomers reported the first potential discovery of an exomoon–a satellite orbiting a planet around another star. Part of what is so striking about the report is the scale of this possible planet-moon system. In this case, the “moon” appears to be about the size of Neptune; the planet it orbits is some 10 times the mass of Jupiter, or about 3,000 times the mass of Earth! The system pushes at the limits of how we normally categorize objects in space and invites questions about where we stand in the scale of things. What is the...

A nearly Earth-size storm system was spotted near Neptune's equator, surprising scientists because no bright clouds have ever been seen in that location. The storm is about 6,000 miles (9,000 kilometers) in length — about three-quarters Earth's diameter — and is even huge compared to the size of Neptune: it spans nearly 30 degrees in both longitude and latitude. When astronomers studied the storm between June 26 and July 2, it appeared to get brighter. "Seeing a storm this bright at such a low latitude is extremely surprising," Ned Molter, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, said...

Astronomers first spotted an asteroid about as long as a 737 passenger jet on Sunday and analyzed its path to determine it had made a close pass by our planet three days earlier. In other words, the big space rock slipped right by us without being detected and was only seen in our cosmic rear-view mirror. While the asteroid, now named 2017 001, flew right on by without incident, it was a relatively close pass. It came within about one-third the distance between Earth and the moon, roughly 76,448 miles (123,031 km). With an estimated size of between 82 and...

Just. Wow. An angry monster lurks in the shoulder of the Hunter. We’re talking about the red giant star Betelgeuse, also known as Alpha Orionis in the constellation Orion. Recently, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) gave us an amazing view of Betelgeuse, one of the very few stars that is large enough to be resolved as anything more than a point of light.

Neural networks come to astronomy as a self-adapting algorithm digs through star maps to find rogue fast-moving stars, writes Andrew Masterson. An artificial neural network capable of learning from its own observations is helping astronomers identify a rare type of star that might offer clues to both the formation of the Milky Way and the role of dark matter in governing its motion. In research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team led by Elena Maria Rossi from Leiden University in the Netherlands detail how the self-adapting algorithm is spotting rogue stars among millions mapped...

Sorry for the Vanity, but I was on an Astronomy Ping List and haven't seen any pictures in a good, long while. Is it still active?

There have now been rebuttals of the Revelation 12 Sign by Joel Richardson, Danny Faulkner, Tim McHyde, Billy Crone, and now J.L. Robb from Omega Letter.  We've been studying and teaching the Revelation 12 Sign since 2012 and after nearly five years this great sign has weathered every attack that could be thrown at it. We addressed all of the rebuttals, point-by-point (see here, here, here, and here) and what we discovered in the process is that all of the arguments against the #REV12SIGN fall flat.  J.L. Robb's arguments have finally proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that...

NASA scientists are outdoing themselves yet again: by reworking the planned route for a robotic mission to a giant asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion, they’ve managed to cut costs, launch sooner and arrive four years earlier than planned. Not bad. The Psyche planetoid, measuring 240km (149 miles) in diameter, is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is made almost entirely of iron and nickel. At current market prices, such an asteroid, a truly unique object in our solar system, is estimated to be worth $10,000 quadrillion ($10,000,000,000,000,000,000). That is, if you could successfully tow it into orbit...

he Cassini spacecraft is nearing the end of its lifespan. This September, after spending the past twenty years in space – twelve and a half of which were dedicated to studying Saturn and its system of moons – the probe will be crash into Saturn’s atmosphere. But between now and then, the probe will be making its “Grand Finale” – the final phase of its mission where it will dive between the planet and its rings 22 times. In addition to exploring this region of Saturn (something no other mission has done), the probe will also be using this opportunity...

A reader recently asked a question that many of us have probably wondered: if the Revelation 12 Sign occurs on September 23rd, why does it appear that the male child (Jupiter) is born two weeks earlier on September 9th? It's a good question that appears to have a Scriptural answer.  Not only an answer to the objection, but further confirmation and evidence of the precision and significance of this September's sign. In Revelation 12:1-2 the sign is described with all of its simultaneous details: the sun, the moon, the crown of twelve stars, and the woman in labor.  The...

Tian Yulong, secretary general for China's space agency, confirmed the plans ESA has described its 'Moon Village' as a launching pad for missions to Mars The lunar site could also support space mining missions and even tourism It could also act as a 'pit stop' for the further exploration of deep space China is talking with the European Space Agency about collaborating on a human settlement on the moon. The secretary general for China's space agency, Tian Yulong, disclosed the talks today in Chinese state media. The ESA has previously described its 'Moon Village' as a potential international launching pad...

Ancient stone carvings confirm that a comet struck the Earth around 11,000BC, a devastating event which wiped out wooly mammoths and sparked the rise of civilisations. Experts at the University of Edinburgh analysed mysterious symbols carved onto stone pillars at Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey, to find out if they could be linked to constellations. The markings suggest that a swarm of comet fragments hit Earth at the exact same time that a mini-ice age struck, changing the entire course of human history.

Enceladus’ south pole is wounded, bleeding heat and water. Its injury may have come from a huge rock smashing into this frigid moon of Saturn less than 100 million years ago, leaving the area riddled with leaky cracks. The region near Enceladus’ south pole marks one of the solar system’s most intriguing mysteries. It spews plumes of liquid from an interior ocean, plus an enormous amount of heat. The south pole’s heat emission is about 10 gigawatts higher than expected – equivalent to the power of 4000 wind turbines running at full capacity. The rest of the moon, though, is...