Andy Briggs has spent the past 30 years communicating astronomy, astrophysics and information technology to people. You can hear his weekly astronomy and space news update, on Mondays, on the global internet radio channel AstroRadio (http://www.astroradio.earth), where he also contributes to other programmes. He has been active in many astronomy societies in the UK and is a frequent contributor to Astronomy Ireland magazine. Andy also lectures regularly on astrophysics-related themes such as gravitational waves and black holes. He lives in Catalonia, Spain, with his daughter.
A quasar is an extremely bright and distant point-like source visible to radio telescopes. The source is a so-called Active Galactic Nucleus, fueled by a supermassive black hole.
A supernova is a star’s colossal explosion at the end of its life, potentially outshining its entire galaxy. Read about the causes and types of supernovae here.
We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way. But there is so much more to know about these grand and glorious star islands in space! Click in here, and prepare to have your mind expanded.
Unlike the open star clusters – containing sibling stars, scattered through the disk of our galaxy and presumably other galaxies – globular clusters are big, symmetrical and old, like an earthly city’s oldest and most staid citizens.
Fast Radio Bursts are very mysterious bursts of radio waves – perhaps just a thousandth of a second long – coming from all over the sky. This new discovery of one in our own galaxy is a stunner!
Exoplanets are worlds orbiting distant stars. The history of our knowledge of exoplanets, the various types of exoplanets, how astronomers find them, and more, here.