Meet WFIRST, The Area Telescope with the Power of 100 Hubbles
WFIRST ain’t your grandma’s space telescope. Despite having the same size mirror as the surprisingly reliable Hubble Space Telescope, clocking in at 2.4 meters across, this puppy will pack a punch with a gigantic 300 megapixel camera, enabling it to snap a single image with an area a hundred times greater than the Hubble. With…
Astronomy Cast Ep. 512: Direct Imaging of Exoplanets
Finding planets is old news, we now know of thousands and thousands of the places. But the terrible irony is that we can only see a fraction of the planets out there using the traditional methods of radial velocity and transits. But the new telescopes will take things to the next level and image planets…
Ask Ethan: Why Cannot Our Telescopes Discover Planet X?
This artistic rendering shows the distant view from a theoretical 'Planet Nine' or 'Planet X' back towards the sun. The planet is thought to be gaseous, but smaller than Uranus and Neptune. Hypothetical lightning lights up the night side.Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) The history of astronomy has been a history of receding horizons. The invention of…
New SPECULOOS Telescope Sees First Light. Quickly it’ll be Seeing Habitable...
Our newest planet-hunting telescope is up and running at the ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile. SPECULOOS, which stands for Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars, is actually four 1-meter telescopes working together. The first images from the ‘scopes are in, and though it hasn’t found any other Earths yet, the images are still…
Astronomy Cast Ep. 508: 2018 Vacation Present Guide
We did it, we made it to the end of another year. Once again it’s time to wonder what gifts to get your beloved space nerds. We’ve got some suggestions. Some are brand new this year, others are classics that we just can’t help but continue to suggest. Let’s get into it. We usually record…
Hawaiian Supreme Court offers consent to huge telescope
Enlarge / Keck 1 and Keck 2, near the summit of Mauna Kea. The giant volcanoes of Hawaii's Big Island held a special place for the Polynesians who first settled there, with the peak of Mauna Kea being reserved for that society's elite. But in recent years, they've become home to a new kind of…
Carnival of Area #583
Welcome to the 583rd Carnival of Space! The Carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. We have a fantastic roundup today so now, on to this week’s worth of stories!The Hill Chandra X-Ray Observatory Blog Universe Today: Thank you for…
