Science

A view of Mars captured by the UAE Hope Probe

Hope probe’s global map of Mars

An artist's impression of a white dwarf star. Credit: 7activestudio / Getty Images

How white dwarfs are born

A star like our Sun swelling into a red giant and engulfing its orbiting planets. Credit: Stocktrek Images/Tomasz Dabrowski / Getty Images

What will happen to our Solar System in the future?

Artist's impression of the first stars in the Universe.

What were the first stars in the Universe like?

eva maria mueller dark energy

Radio Astronomy Podcast What is dark energy?

An image of Uranus and its rings captured by the Keck II telescope Source: W. M. Keck Observatory (Marcos van Dam)

Why is Uranus the coldest planet in the Solar System?

ESO Photo Ambassador Babak Tafreshi snapped this remarkable image of the antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), set against the splendour of the Milky Way. The richness of the sky in this picture attests to the unsurpassed conditions for astronomy on the 5000-metre-high Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama region. This view shows the constellations of Carina (The Keel) and Vela (The Sails). The dark, wispy dust clouds of the Milky Way streak from middle top left to middle bottom right. The bright orange star in the upper left is Suhail in Vela, while the similarly orange star in the upper middle is Avior, in Carina. Of the three bright blue stars that form an “L” near these stars, the left two belong to Vela, and the right one to Carina. And exactly in the centre of the image below these stars gleams the pink glow of the Carina Nebula (eso1208). ESO, the European partner in ALMA, is providing 25 of the 66 antennas that will make up the completed telescope. The two antennas closest to the camera, on which the careful viewer can find the markings “DA-43” and “DA-41”, are examples of these European antennas. Construction of the full ALMA array will be completed in 2013, but the telescope is already making scientific observations with a partial array of antennas. Babak Tafreshi is founder of The World At Night, a programme to create and exhibit a collection of stunning photographs and time-lapse videos of the world’s most beautiful and historic sites against a night-time backdrop of stars, planets and celestial events. ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) prov

What does an astronomer actually do?

Noctilucent clouds. Credit: Meindert van der Haven/istock/getty images

Noctilucent clouds What they are and how to see them

An illustration imagining the Big Bang. Credit: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library / Getty Images

Could there have been a Universe before the Big Bang?

A view of the Sun captured by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft during perihelion, the spacecraft's closest point to the Sun in its orbit. Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team

Solar Orbiter See the spacecraft's brand new close-up images of our Sun

Astronomer Eugene Shoemaker. Credit: Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS/VCG via Getty Images

Astronomers you should know Eugene Shoemaker

Cosmic rays permeate the Solar System. Credit: ESA

The 5 fastest things in the Universe

How does particle physics intertwine with astrophysics and astronomy? Credit: Xuanyu Han/istock/getty images, SCIEPRO/istock/getty images, KTSDesign/SCIENCEPHOTOLIBRARY/istock/getty images, MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/istock/getty images

How particle physics and astronomy are intertwined

Artist’s impression shows how ULAS J1120+0641, a quasar powered by a black hole with a mass 2 billion times that of the Sun, may have looked. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Could supermassive black holes be halting star formation?

Scientists are teaching drones to hunt for meteorites on Earth. Credit: Curtin University

Scientists are teaching drones to hunt for meteorites on Earth