Sharmila Kuthunur, Author at Astronomy.com

This distant star is about to die — and astronomers caught it in close-up

Sharmila Kuthunur — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 17:42:14 +0000

After years of effort, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced they managed to capture the first closeup image of a star beyond our galaxy. This remarkable achievement offers more than just stunning visuals — it provides a rare glimpse into the final moments of a star that will inevitably explode as a spectacularContinue reading "This distant star is about to die — and astronomers caught it in close-up"

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Traces of Earth’s earliest atmosphere could be buried on the Moon

Sharmila Kuthunur — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Our Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and, through careful work, scientists have pieced together a timeline of its past. But much of its earliest history remains a mystery. Scant geological evidence remains of the first 500 million years, an elusive era when our planet was a ball of molten rock routinely bombarded withContinue reading "Traces of Earth’s earliest atmosphere could be buried on the Moon"

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Could we experience the first-ever human-made meteor shower?

Sharmila Kuthunur — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 17:01:36 +0000

Come 2034, humans could witness the first-ever artificial meteor shower sparked by activity in space. That’s according to a new simulation led by Eloy Peña-Asensio of Italy’s Polytechnic University of Milan, who modeled the trajectories of 3 million particles of rocky debris blasted into space after NASA’s DART spacecraft intentionally slammed into the diminutive asteroidContinue reading "Could we experience the first-ever human-made meteor shower?"

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Mars is bombarded by more meteorites than previously thought

Sharmila Kuthunur — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:42:15 +0000

Scientists have long wondered why more bowl-shaped craters from asteroid strikes haven’t been found on Mars, despite the Red Planet sitting next to the asteroid belt and its sparse atmosphere being just 1 percent as thick as Earth’s. A new study suggests roughly 300 basketball-sized meteorites pockmark Mars’ surface every year, raising previous estimates byContinue reading "Mars is bombarded by more meteorites than previously thought"

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One-shot fast radio bursts may emerge from Milky Way-like galaxies, new research suggests

Sharmila Kuthunur — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:40:59 +0000

For more than a decade now, astronomers have been puzzling over the origins of so-called fast radio bursts (FRB), which are fleeting yet energy-packed flashes of light in deep space. In fractions of a second, these bursts blast into space as much energy as the Sun radiates in a single day. Nearly 800 of theseContinue reading "One-shot fast radio bursts may emerge from Milky Way-like galaxies, new research suggests"

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Mysterious Cloverleaf ‘odd radio circle’ could be a merger of a dozen galaxies

Sharmila Kuthunur — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 19:25:30 +0000

In 2020 when astronomers using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) discovered ghostly circles of radio emissions in the sky that were so gigantic, they surpassed our Milky Way’s size tenfold. And so far, no known cosmic phenomenon could explain how they came to existence and what they even are. The supremely inflated profilesContinue reading "Mysterious Cloverleaf ‘odd radio circle’ could be a merger of a dozen galaxies"

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Neptune-like planet ‘Phoenix’ baffles astronomers with its atmosphere

Sharmila Kuthunur — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 19:22:43 +0000

Astronomers have discovered a planet beyond our solar system that’s so cozy with its host star, its supremely puffy atmosphere should have been stripped down to bare rock billions of years ago. Yet the planet’s thick air has endured its star’s immense radiation for possibly billions of years, challenging conventional theories about how planets ageContinue reading "Neptune-like planet ‘Phoenix’ baffles astronomers with its atmosphere"

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Ephemeral morning frost discovered atop Mars’ tallest volcanoes

Sharmila Kuthunur — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 15:00:00 +0000

In early 2022, then-Ph.D. student Adomas Valantinas was at the University of Bern, sorting thousands of images of Mars snapped by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft when he noticed vast swaths of odd material near the planet’s equator. Sifting through the pictures, he soon saw a pattern: the bluish deposits,Continue reading "Ephemeral morning frost discovered atop Mars’ tallest volcanoes"

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‘This planet should not be there.’ Second lightest exoplanet known to date surprises astronomers

Sharmila Kuthunur — Tue, 28 May 2024 14:22:48 +0000

An unusual old, hot Jupiter-like planet with a “puffy” atmosphere has been discovered in our galaxy, huddled around a distant Sun-like star. This gas giant, named WASP-193b, is now the second-lightest exoplanet ever found and the latest addition to a unique and mysterious group of exoplanets with Jupiter- and Neptune-like masses but volumes much greater,Continue reading "‘This planet should not be there.’ Second lightest exoplanet known to date surprises astronomers"

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Euclid’s new portraits of the dark universe are filled with detail, and wonder

Sharmila Kuthunur — Sun, 26 May 2024 13:07:17 +0000

Scientists with the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission released a fresh batch of breathtaking images of our universe this week. This is the second set released after a similarly stunning batch from last November, which provided a sneak peek of the telescope’s capabilities before researchers began analyzing the data in earnest. The new batch ofContinue reading "Euclid’s new portraits of the dark universe are filled with detail, and wonder"

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