One Planet Hunter to Another

It wasn’t long after the discovery of exo-solar planets that scientists sent up spacecraft to look for them.  The Kepler Space Telescope (KST) was NASA’s first planet finder, which has been exceeding expectations since 2009.  It likely won’t get to continue on that road, as it is nearing the end of it’s life.  At the same time, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is just starting to open it’s eyes.  Today we say goodbye to one great planet hunter and hello to another.   KST is part of NASA’s early 2000s spacecraft approvals that saw relatively inexpensive missions pushed forward...

46 Billion Pixels of the Universe

192 Gigabytes.  One picture.  And I thought the 4 GB Andromeda shot was impressive (okay it still is). But this shot of the Milky Way, the largest single astronomical image ever compiled, is truly staggering in its detail.  Showing multiple images taken with different filters, the massive compilation is the culmination of a 5-year observing program by the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. It’s amazing how much detail is shown, as you zoom in across the different features and truly get a sense for the magnitude of our Galaxy, and for the massive population of stars. I have yet to find a way to...