astronomy
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India’s Liquid Mirror Telescope Is Ready for Its Close-up
High in the Himalayas, a new telescope is set to observe the night sky. The contraption has a 4-metre (3.96 m) lens, but here’s the kicker: it’s made of liquid mercury, a material seldom used for astronomical imaging.
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New Milky Way Visualisations Show the Dance of Millions of Stars in Incredible Detail
The European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory has just unleashed a “treasure trove” of data on nearly 2 billion stars in the Milky Way, revealing how fast they move toward or away from us, as well as unusual ‘starquakes’ that change the shapes of stars.
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NASA’s New Arcade-Style Space Telescope Video Game is Totally Stellar
NASA is drumming up excitement for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope with a super-retro 8-bit inspired video game, and it’s honestly really fun. In the game, players are Roman Space Telescope operators that have to collect different celestial objects ranging from exoplanets to dark matter.
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How to Watch the (Potential) Tau Herculids Meteor Shower Tonight
As a periodic meteor shower, the Tau Herculids tend to be quite boring, but astronomers have reason to believe that this year’s version might be different. Here’s what you need to know about when, where, and how to watch this promising celestial spectacle.