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The second voyage of “Star Trek: Picard” launches on Paramount Plus arrives today, March 3, and eager fans will be experiencing a bit of temporal distortion as Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the La Sirena whip back to Earth of the year 2024 to try and correct the timeline as a final test … Read more
Two years ago, astronomers thought they had seen signs of a black hole 1000 light years from Earth – but it turns out to be a star being consumed by its neighbour Space 2 March 2022 By Alex Wilkins An artist’s impression of the binary star system HR 6819 ESO/L. Calçada Strange signals coming from … Read more
What astronomers had concluded to be a black hole a mere 1,120 light-years from Earth instead appears to be something quite different: a two-star system where one of the stars is sucking the life out of the other. Far from disappointing, though, the conclusion gives astronomers an exciting opportunity to explore how these ‘vampiric’ stars … Read more
Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 4, Episode 10 As the fourth season of “Star Trek: Discovery” trudges on, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that we’ve been here before. Not only is the basic premise of this seasonal story arc virtually identical to the last one, but when the season is considered … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope will zero in on a portion of the famous Orion Nebula, the closest region of mass star-formation to Earth, to learn more about how massive young stars shape their environments. The Orion Nebula, some 1,350 light-years away from Earth, is known as a stellar nursery. Dense clouds of gas and dust … Read more
A strange X-ray glow seen in the sky three and a half years after an epic collision between two neutron stars is a first for science. According to astronomers studying the region of space, it could be the afterglow of the kilonova explosion that was generated by the merger, likely produced by a shock wave … Read more
We thought black holes rotated in the same plane as their orbit. One that is tilted by at least 40 degrees suggests our understanding of their behaviour needs an update Space 24 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins Artist impression of the X-ray binary system containing a black hole (small black dot at the centre of … Read more
Not all planetary systems are alike. Out there in the big, wide galaxy, a number of different configurations have been spotted, some vastly different from our home system. These include extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, that orbit not one, but two stars, like the fictional Star Wars world of Tatooine. Now, for the first time, astronomers … Read more
Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 4, Episode 9 While last week’s episode at least provided another fleeting glimpse into life in the galaxy circa 3190, this week we see a return to the primary plot, and we’re rewarded with drama, giant explosions, phasers and photon torpedoes — and even the return of … Read more
We thought black holes rotated in the same plane as their orbit. One that is tilted by at least 40 degrees suggests our understanding of their behaviour needs an update Space 24 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins Artist impression of the X-ray binary system containing a black hole (small black dot at the centre of … Read more