Posts

Posted on

Free Astronomy Magazine – September-October 2025 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: This image captures a small section of NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s view of the Virgo Cluster, offering a vivid glimpse of the variety in the cosmos. Visible are two prominent spiral galaxies, three merging galaxies, galaxy groups both near and distant, stars within our own Milky Way, and much more. Image available at rubinobservatory.org. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (September-October 2025) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and now Chinese(!) at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

We spent so much time in 2019-2020 or so (with little else to do) reading about the varying brightness of Betelgeuse and that, maybe, finally, maybe, just maybe, it was *this close* to going off in our lifetime, that we neglected to think about the collateral damage it might cause to anything in close proximity (and close is certainly relative, with anything there that might know the difference within light years certainly in for stormy weather). As it happens, a long-suspected lurking neighbor, here in the form of a pre-Main Sequence star, has recently been discovered according to recent studies with NOIRLab's ‘Alopeke instrument on Gemini North.

And it also looks like a featured-but-featureless picture right out of the National Geographic Picture Atlas Of Our Universe book (the one with the primo John Berkey cover art, mine having suffered slightly at the curious hands of my space cadet kids).

And, of course, the Vera Rubin Observatory coming online and now posting images is the second most important space science story of the past few months (the state of the NASA budget being the first by page hit) and the most important space science progress since James Webb coming online. Let us hope the gap between the capabilities of modern tools and the expectations of the next generation of similar tools only grows.

Posted on

Free Astronomy Magazine – July-August 2025 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: Combined MeerKAT and James Webb Space Telescope images. The star-forming region Sagittarius C, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, is about 200 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. Huge vertical filamentary structures in the MeerKAT radio data echo those Webb captured on a smaller scale, in infrared, in a blue-green hydrogen cloud. Astronomers think the strong magnetic fields in the heart of the galaxy are shaping the filaments. For Webb, color is assigned by shifting the infrared spectrum to visible light colors. The shortest infrared wavelengths are bluer, and the longer wavelengths appear more red. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crow

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (July-August 2025) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Back with a cover story by our fearless leader Michele Ferrara concerning the ever-present desire by some scientists (OK, effectively all scientists) to be the very first to the gate in making a major discovery. In this case, Nikku Madhusudhan of Cambridge, with his group's publication at https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.05566, followed soon-ish after by https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13407, a follow-up to be found at https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12267, and more digestible variations of recent re-assessments at such places as https://www.straitstimes.com/world/doubt-cast-on-claim-of-hints-of-life-on-faraway-planet.

That said, given how long it takes to get time on major facilities to obtain this data, how well the astronomical community (but certainly not the twitter/X-verse) is at tempering such studies with significant follow-up assessments of the same data, and the fact that such a somewhat early claim and the associated press are among the few reasons why the community outside of the astronomical community are aware of the amazing work done by, for instance, the JWST teams, we will all likely continue to let such cycles cycle until someone lands on that particular gold mine.

Posted on

Free Astronomy Magazine – May-June 2025 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: A highly cropped view of RCW 38, featured in an ESO article in the current issue, and which I'll need to plan a trip far south to ever see for myself. Image from https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2503/.

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (May-June 2025) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Another edition heavy on content provided by major astronomical observatories and agencies (original content still in the works). As always, an excellent collection and afternoon read.

We hear/read a lot about the recent feats of the James Webb Space Telescope, from which is remain warming (just slightly, in the interest of detector sensitivity) to read how the data from Hubble Space Telescope continues to complement the science and analysis being performed by Webb, such as in the NASA articles "Webb peers deeper into mysterious Flame Nebula" and "Webb exposes complex atmosphere of starless super-Jupiter."