Looking up at the night sky, it’s reasonable to believe that our Solar System is largely empty after all the only things easily visible are the planets. In reality its a cosmic shooting gallery and it’s just a matter of time before an asteroid slams into Earth. A team of scientists propose that space agencies develop a rapid-response flyby reconnaissance mission to reach potential asteroid threats within 2.5 years of detection.
Telescopes can have more than one sensor. Those sensors can utilize some of the same infrastructure, like lenses and mirrors, and specialize in collecting different data. A good example of this is the Inouye Solar Telescope (IST). It is the largest solar telescope in the world, with a primary mirror diameter of 4 meters. It also has five separate instruments, four of which are currently in operation. The latest of these to come online is the Visible Tunable Filtergraph (VTF), which just collected its first light according to a press release by the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research, one of the project partners.
About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the first atoms formed. The first light of what we now see as the cosmic microwave background was released, and the primordial hydrogen and helium grew cold and dark. The cosmos entered a dark age for about 100 million years until the first stars and galaxies started to form. You could say the rise of galaxies marked cosmic morning. But star formation didn't really kick into gear for another 2-3 billion years, during what astronomers call cosmic noon. This period can be difficult to observe, but a new study gives us an unprecedented view of this epoch.
The Milky Way has more than 30 known satellite galaxies. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the largest and most well-known; other lesser-known ones, like the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, are also on the list. Astronomers think there are many more small satellites that are difficult to detect but essential in understanding the Milky Way. The Vera Rubin Observatory should help astronomers find many more of them.