By Aishwarya Kapoor
Four million times the mass of the Sun sits at the centre of the Milky Way, and every star in our galaxy, including our own, orbits it. Sagittarius A* is not a distant cosmic curiosity. It is the gravitational anchor our solar system has been circling for roughly 225 million years, at a speed of 828,000 kilometres per hour.
Four million times the mass of the Sun sits at the centre of the Milky Way, and every star in our galaxy, including our own, orbits it. Sagittarius A* is not a distant cosmic curiosity. It is the gravitational anchor our solar system has been circling for roughly 225 million years, at a speed of 828,000 kilometres per hour.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
Saturn's moon Enceladus shoots geysers of liquid water into space. Titan has lakes, but filled with methane. Europa hides an ocean larger than all of Earth's seas combined. The moons orbiting the outer solar system have turned out to be the strangest, most scientifically electric objects we have ever found, and most people have never heard of them.
Saturn's moon Enceladus shoots geysers of liquid water into space. Titan has lakes, but filled with methane. Europa hides an ocean larger than all of Earth's seas combined. The moons orbiting the outer solar system have turned out to be the strangest, most scientifically electric objects we have ever found, and most people have never heard of them.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
The Sun's corona runs millions of degrees hotter than its visible surface, its plasma loops dwarf entire planets, and its magnetic field flips on a cycle that drives solar flares. None of this is theoretical. These are measured facts that space agencies including ISRO's Aditya-L1 are actively studying. Five confirmed solar phenomena that will change how you picture the star we orbit.
The Sun's corona runs millions of degrees hotter than its visible surface, its plasma loops dwarf entire planets, and its magnetic field flips on a cycle that drives solar flares. None of this is theoretical. These are measured facts that space agencies including ISRO's Aditya-L1 are actively studying. Five confirmed solar phenomena that will change how you picture the star we orbit.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
Every year, thousands of people buy star naming certificates as gifts, romantic, memorial, hopeful. The star is real. The name on that certificate is not. Only the IAU holds the authority to officially name any star in astronomy, and it has never sold that right to anyone. Here is what those websites are actually selling, and what your star is really called.
Every year, thousands of people buy star naming certificates as gifts, romantic, memorial, hopeful. The star is real. The name on that certificate is not. Only the IAU holds the authority to officially name any star in astronomy, and it has never sold that right to anyone. Here is what those websites are actually selling, and what your star is really called.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
Launched in 1977, NASA's Voyager probes are now the farthest human-made objects in deep space, and both carry a golden record packed with sounds, images, and a pulsar map pointing back to Earth. If aliens ever intercept them, here is exactly what they will find, and why the scientists who built this message believed it could actually work.
Launched in 1977, NASA's Voyager probes are now the farthest human-made objects in deep space, and both carry a golden record packed with sounds, images, and a pulsar map pointing back to Earth. If aliens ever intercept them, here is exactly what they will find, and why the scientists who built this message believed it could actually work.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
The Moon completes one full rotation on its axis in exactly the same time it takes to orbit Earth, and that is no coincidence. Gravity sculpted this arrangement over billions of years through a process called tidal locking. The far side of the Moon is not dark, not mysterious by accident. It is the direct consequence of a force that never switched off.
The Moon completes one full rotation on its axis in exactly the same time it takes to orbit Earth, and that is no coincidence. Gravity sculpted this arrangement over billions of years through a process called tidal locking. The far side of the Moon is not dark, not mysterious by accident. It is the direct consequence of a force that never switched off.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
The Gregorian calendar on your wall cannot tell you when Diwali falls this year. For that, you need the moon. Indian festivals have tracked lunar cycles for thousands of years, and the astronomy behind that choice is more precise, more layered, and stranger than most people realise. The panchang is not superstition. It is applied celestial mechanics.
The Gregorian calendar on your wall cannot tell you when Diwali falls this year. For that, you need the moon. Indian festivals have tracked lunar cycles for thousands of years, and the astronomy behind that choice is more precise, more layered, and stranger than most people realise. The panchang is not superstition. It is applied celestial mechanics.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
In April 2019, a photograph stopped the world. The image showed a black hole for the first time, not an artist's guess, but real light bent around a real shadow. Here is what the EHT telescope actually captured, why the discovery shook astronomy to its core, and what that glowing ring tells us about space itself.
In April 2019, a photograph stopped the world. The image showed a black hole for the first time, not an artist's guess, but real light bent around a real shadow. Here is what the EHT telescope actually captured, why the discovery shook astronomy to its core, and what that glowing ring tells us about space itself.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
Astronauts return from space measurably taller, and then shrink back within weeks of landing. The answer lives in the spine, in the soft discs between each vertebra, and in what microgravity does to a body that evolved under constant gravity. This is the physics of height, told through the strangest thing a human skeleton does when you take gravity away.
Astronauts return from space measurably taller, and then shrink back within weeks of landing. The answer lives in the spine, in the soft discs between each vertebra, and in what microgravity does to a body that evolved under constant gravity. This is the physics of height, told through the strangest thing a human skeleton does when you take gravity away.
By Aishwarya Kapoor
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By Riya Kumari
By Riya Kumari
By Riya Kumari
By Riya Kumari
By Riya Kumari
By Riya Kumari
By Riya Kumari