What Is a Black Hole? Origins, Physics & Discovery Explained
A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything—even light—from escaping. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. The boundary…
June 23, 2015: 60,000 orbits for Mars Odyssey
NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft completed its 60,000th orbit of the Red Planet on June 23, 2015. When Odyssey launched in April 2001 with a goal of better understanding Mars’ environment, the Red Planet was generally thought to be dry, barren world; the…
June 28, 2011: Kerberos is discovered
On June 28, 2011, Pluto’s moon Kerberos was discovered by a team using the Hubble Space Telescope, led by senior research scientist Mark Showalter. While the primary goal of the observing program was to identify both potential targets and potential…
How a signal from a 60-year-old satellite baffled astronomers for over a year
Around midday on June 13 last year, my colleagues and I were scanning the skies when we thought we had discovered a strange and exciting new object in space. Using a huge radio telescope, we spotted a blindingly fast flash of radio waves that appeared to…