SPACERIUM

In the bustling asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter lies a world unlike any other – 16 Psyche . This celestial oddity, discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis , stands out from its rocky and icy neighbors with a unique metallic glint.  Psyche's remarkable composition and potential role in unraveling the history of our solar system have made it a prime target for exploration. A Primeval Relic: Discovery and Location De Gasparis spotted Psyche from the Naples Observatory in Italy . It holds the distinction of being the 16th asteroid discovered , hence the number in its name.  Orbiting the Sun between 2.53 and 3.32 Astronomical Units (AU) , Psyche's path takes it roughly 2.5 to 5 times farther from the Sun than Earth.  This places it within the main asteroid belt, a vast collection of rocky and metallic debris leftover from the formation of our solar system. Uniquely Composed: A World of Metal What truly sets Psyche apart is its suspected compositio...

The Planet Hotter Than a Star Exoplanets, those distant worlds orbiting alien suns, have captured our imaginations for decades. But KELT-9b , a scorching gas giant, transcends mere fascination. It's a crucible forged by fire, holding the title of the hottest exoplanet ever discovered. Let's embark on a journey to this inferno and explore the secrets it holds. Unveiling the Exoplanet Atmosphere Unlike the familiar, rocky planets of our solar system, KELT-9b belongs to a class known as " Ultrahot Jupiters ".  Orbiting its star, KELT-9, at a scorchingly close 0.034 AU ( compared to Mercury's 0.39 AU from our Sun ), KELT-9b endures a relentless onslaught of radiation. KELT-9 itself is a behemoth, a B-type star 2-3 times larger and hotter than our Sun . The result? A dayside temperature exceeding a staggering 4,600 Kelvin (7,800 degrees Fahrenheit) – hot enough to vaporize most metals and rip apart even water molecules. Does KELT-9b even possess a traditional atmos...

  What is The Gravitational Lensing Picture spacetime as a trampoline. Massive objects like galaxies act like bowling balls, warping the fabric. Light travels in a straight line, but when it passes this warped region, it bends - just like a marble rolling near the bowling ball. This is gravitational lensing. In the JWST image, a foreground galaxy bends light from a distant quasar, RX J1131-1231 , creating the stunning ring - a cosmic magnifying glass revealing the otherwise hidden quasar. How this Quasar is Gravitationally Lensed? The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to impress, this time capturing a once-in-a-lifetime image: a distant quasar warped into a dazzling ring by the gravity of a massive, unseen galaxy. The quasar, a powerhouse galaxy fueled by a supermassive black hole, is dubbed RX J1131-1231 and resides a mind-boggling 6 billion light-years away in the Crater constellation . But the true spectacle lies in the luminous ring surrounding it. This phenomenon,...

  Imagine a world whipped by scorching winds, racing around its sun in just over two days. That's Gliese 436b , or Awohali as it was recently named, a captivating exoplanet that defies everything we know about our solar system. Buckle up, space adventurers, because we're diving into a world of hot ice, glass rain, and a tail that would make any comet jealous! A Distant Dance: Awohali's Stellar Address Awohali orbits the red dwarf star Gliese 436, located a staggering 31.9 light-years away in the constellation Leo . Light travels at an incredible speed, but even at that pace, it takes over 31 years to reach us from Awohali! To put that in perspective, the closest star to our Sun, Proxima Centauri, is a mere 4.2 light-years away. This vast distance highlights the immense scale of our universe and the challenges of studying these distant worlds. A Speedy Orbit: A Close Embrace and Breakneck Speed Unlike our eight-planet solar system, Awohali is locked in a tight embrace wit...

  Have you ever felt like a speck of dust under a vast, starry night sky? Well, get ready to shrink yourself down even further! Messier 60 (M60) , a giant elliptical galaxy residing 54 million light-years away , puts our own Milky Way to shame. Imagine a celestial coliseum, a swirling mass of stars and dark matter, all packed into a trillion solar masses – that's M60! But this galactic giant isn't just about size; it harbors a dark secret at its core, a supermassive black hole that would make even the hungriest space vacuum cleaner blush. A Black Hole Fit for a King Let's talk about this black hole. Imagine the Sun, our friendly neighborhood star. Now, picture an object 4.5 BILLION times more massive . That's the kind of monster lurking in the heart of M60. It's like comparing a marble to the Empire State Building – the scale is simply mind-boggling. While this black hole isn't actively chowing down on surrounding matter right now (consider it a galactic slacker...

Galileo Galilei is a name in history who has made many big discoveries in astronomy and has also contributed to space research and physics. Galileo loved studying stars and the solar system, but before 1608 there was no such thing as a telescope. Then Galileo used to sit on the ground and draw the location of the planets on the ground, and then he also found out their speed of rotation. Galileo was already a brilliant student. The first telescope was invented in the year 1608 by HANS LIPPERSHEY who first patented his telescope in the Netherlands, and this was the first mention of a telescope. He said "For seeing things far away, as if they were nearby". Its actual inventor is not known but this line became popular all over Europe. Galileo Galilei , a famous person of that time who used to study stars and planets and had a great interest in geometry, also read this news. He also wanted to make a similar telescope through which he could study the planets. At that time, telesc...

  We all must have seen the movie Interstellar, and it seems very inspiring, but is it all true? Yes, it can be true, because in our exoplanet discovery phase, the Kepler telescope has discovered many exoplanets and one of them is Kepler-22b also known as The Ocean Planet , it is exactly like Interstellar's Miller's planet which revolves around a star and not a black hole, it is orbiting right in the habitable zone of our Earth which may be creating an underwater world! Kepler-22b: A Potential Ocean Paradise Imagine a planet eerily similar to our own, bathed in the gentle glow of a sun-like star. This is the tantalizing possibility that Kepler-22b presents. Discovered in 2011 , it was one of the first exoplanets found within the habitable zone of its star, Kepler-22. This "Goldilocks zone" is the sweet spot where liquid water, the essential ingredient for life as we know it, could exist on a planet's surface. Here's where things get truly exciting! Unlike Ea...

Gazing into the inky expanse of space, we encounter countless stars, each with its own story. But nestled amongst the familiar and predictable, there exists a celestial oddball: KIC 8462852 , better known as Tabby's Star or the delightfully blunt "WTF Star" . This F-type main-sequence star, similar to our Sun but slightly larger, has become an enigma due to its bizarre dimming behavior. Unlike the well-understood dips caused by transiting planets, Tabby's Star exhibits dramatic and irregular drops in brightness, sometimes by a staggering 20%. This unpredictable dimming has astronomers scratching their heads and proposing a multitude of theories to explain this cosmic light show. The Usual Suspects: Why Tabby's Star Plays Hide and Seek Before diving into the fantastical, let's explore some more grounded possibilities for the erratic dimming: Planetary Leviathan on a Chaotic Orbit: Imagine a behemoth of a planet, 1000 times Earth's mass , with a wildly irr...

  Exoplanets and stars seem so familiar, and it has become common as that thing is no longer unique, but have you seen a real exoplanet? Your answer will be yes, the images we see are real, no, those images are artistic, but scientists have captured a planet for the first time that revolves around a star that is dimmer than itself, I s the star dimmer than the planet? WTF, yes it's absolutely right, and the star's diameter is around 7,00,000 km and the diameter of the planet is around 2,00,000 km , it's strange but true...... Fasten your spacesuits, space explorers! Today, we're setting course for 2M1207b , a colossal exoplanet that holds a pivotal place in our quest to unravel the mysteries of alien worlds. The First to be Seen: A Pioneering Discovery in Exoplanet Imaging Imagine a planet so massive, we could directly capture its image! That's precisely what makes 2M1207b groundbreaking. Discovered in 2004 , it's one of the first exoplanets ever directly ima...

Solar System, a topic of exploration which is vast and mysterious in itself, and perhaps this is because in spite of being our home town, it is so big that we have not been able to understand it 100%. In Solar System our parent star SUN has 8 planets revolving in its orientational orbit and out of that the third rocky habitable planet means EARTH is our home, where I am sitting and writing this blog… really fascinating! Solar System sounds like such a familiar name, right? Do we know it completely? You are saying right, we know about the parent star Sun and the 8 planets revolving around it and a little about Pluto, some asteroids, some moons, that's the solar system, right? Not actually, and today we are going to talk about the same topic which everyone knows but is under-rated, that is dwarf planets, you must know that Pluto is placed in the category of dwarf planets because it is small and its orbit is not like other planets, not only Pluto, there are more than 100 dwarf planets...

 Beyond the familiar planets of our solar system lies a realm of icy mysteries. One such object, nicknamed the "sugar world," has captured the imagination of scientists and astronomy enthusiasts alike. This is Arrokoth, a distant resident of the Kuiper Belt that holds clues to the origins of our solar system and the potential for life elsewhere. A Snowman in the Kuiper Belt Imagine a cosmic snowman, sculpted from ancient ice and bathed in the faint light of the distant sun. That's what Arrokoth appears to be – a two-lobed, reddish world composed primarily of frozen ices.  In 2019, NASA's intrepid New Horizons spacecraft became the first to visit this intriguing object, revealing its unique composition and bizarre nickname. The Sweet Secret: Unveiling the Reddish Hue The moniker "sugar world" stems from the discovery of organic molecules, including simple sugars like glucose and ribose, on Arrokoth's surface. However, don't be fooled by the name. Thes...

Ever since the James Webb Space Telescope was launched, it has been telling us a lot about the universe. Similarly, it has discovered a galaxy that was formed 290 million years after the Big Bang and it is the oldest and farthest galaxy discovered till date. Earlier we had talked about JADES-GS-z7-01-QU  & JADES-GS-z13-0 galaxy, which was the oldest galaxy at that time, but JADES-GS-z14-0 has broken all the records. The JADES Team: Peering into the Distant Past JADES is an international team of astronomers leveraging the JWST's immense power to study the early universe. By observing faint objects at extreme distances, they effectively look back in time, piecing together the cosmos's story. Their recent discovery of JADES-GS-z14-0 pushes the frontier of our knowledge even further. JADES-GS-z14-0: A Galaxy Born in Infancy JADES-GS-z14-0 is estimated to have formed a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 2% of its current age. This makes it t...

  We have explored many exoplanets, we have seen many unique and mysterious exoplanets, but this one is something different. I don't think any of you would not like cotton candy! So, we have found a similar planet which would be appropriate to call "The Cotton Candy Planet" this is WASP - 193b, it is so light that its mass is not even 10% of Jupiter, and it is orbiting very close to its star Have you ever dreamt of a planet made entirely of cotton candy? A world where fluffy pink clouds stretched as far as the eye could see, just waiting to be plucked and devoured (sugar crash not included, of course)? Well, buckle up space cadets, because astronomers might have just found the next best thing: WASP-193b, the so-called "Cotton Candy Planet"! Lost in Space (But Not Lost in the Stars): Unlike your local candy store, WASP-193b isn't exactly around the corner. This fluffy giant resides a whopping 850 light-years away in the constellation Sextans. That's a cos...

As you all know, Voyager-1 is the only human made craft which has become the farthest traveller in our space journey till date, and its 46 year journey has been quite wonderful. Voyager-1 spacecraft was launched on September 5, 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Voyager-2 was also launched along with it. The motive of both these spacecraft was to continue their journey in our universe leaving the planets of the Solar System behind and explore other planets. And today, even after 46 years, it is crossing the boundaries of the Solar System and moving ahead in the outer space. It is a matter of great pride that this spacecraft made with such old technology is still looking at us and saying bye-bye and going away. As you all know that Voyager-1 crossed the heliosphere on 25th August 2012 and entered the interstellar space and is currently 15 billion miles away from us. Due to old technology and huge distance, after so many years, its transmission system which converts the data into binary ...