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Posts by
Deborah Byrd
Ultraviolet light key to life search, too?
Too little UV light, and life might not ever start. Too much, in the form dramatic UV flares from stars, and the atmospheres of orbiting planets might undergo damage.
September 10, 2017
X-ray astronomy and planet-hosting stars
X-ray astronomers explored how quickly young stars settle down after blasting the space around themselves - including any possible planets - with energetic radiation.
September 10, 2017
What drives Jupiter’s brightest auroras?
The sun drives Earth's auroras. But Jupiter’s brightest auroras may be accelerated by processes within the giant planet's own magnetic field.
September 9, 2017
Thursday night was fantastic for auroras
Space weather forecasters predicted the possibility of strong geomagnetic storms, resulting in a strong display of the aurora borealis, or northern lights … and they were right!
September 8, 2017
Asteroid 3122 Florence: Video and images
This large asteroid swept closest to Earth on September 1. It's big enough that astronomers are still catching it in small telescopes, as a small, slow-moving “star.”
September 8, 2017
Giant sunspots, solar flares, aurora alert!
Sunwatchers are still tracking those 2 large sunspot groups making their way across the Earth-facing side of the sun. Then yesterday there was an X-flare! Watch for possible auroras.
September 7, 2017
See an extra-red moon or sun this week?
If you live in the U.S. or Canada, a peculiarly red moon - or very spectacular sunrise or sunset - might be due to smoke from wildfires. Click in for images from Earth and space.
September 6, 2017
How many house-sized NEOs?
A new study shows house-sized NEOs - Near-Earth Objects - to be 10 times fewer than studies had indicated. Still, there are some 3.5 million NEOs larger than 10 meters across.
September 5, 2017
Millions of stars
This image sequence from ESA's billion-star surveyor - Gaia - looks toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy and captures some 2.8 million stars.
September 4, 2017
Alien seekers report 15 more fast radio bursts from FRB 121102
Breakthrough Listen – an initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe – used the Green Bank Telescope to observe the bursts from the mysterious distant object known as FRB 121102.
September 2, 2017
