Outer Space

The Best of Our Knowledge explores topics on learning, education, and research.Imagine seeing something brighter than 10 trillion suns… seems impossible.Well, scientists have detected a black hole flare that achieved this rare unbelievable brightness.This sighting opens up the possibility of there being more flares of this magnitude.We will learn all about this supermassive black hole flare.

My autograph collection includes a handwritten note from Aldous Huxley saying “Gratitude is heaven itself,” a fitting thought with Thanksgiving approaching. I’m thankful for many things, including resisting the urge to play mood music at my observatories, since tastes differ and silence still best suits the Orion Nebula in Ulster County. The holiday also prompts a modern cosmological question: whether the universe is an interconnected whole with some underlying intelligence rather than a product of randomness. This idea has scientific grounding, since the laws of physics and the four forces are astonishingly fine-tuned for life—small changes to the strong force or gravity would make stars, water, and life impossible. So we’re left to wonder whether such precision needs an explanation, and whether Nature itself might hold some unseen intelligence, as scientists continue trying to make sense of a cosmos that seems improbably well-suited to us.

Stars, planets, and even our bodies come and go, since permanence is the one thing that nature seems unable to create. The only thing that is enduring is: repetition. Tune in to hear what is repetitious in our galaxy.

About a dozen new comets are discovered every year, but few ever venture close to Earth or become visually impressive. We see only one truly spectacular comet every 15 or 20 years on average. Long period comets often have extended tails that are so bright, the comet can be seen through the lights and smog of a large city. We had two in the 90’s -- Hale Bopp, and Hyakutaki, and you may have read that astronomers recently found a so-called monster comet. It should be brightest the third week of October in 2024, around a year from now. So, are we in for a treat? In truth, it could be great or it could disappoint.

But many celestial phenomena do actually merit gratitude and one is coming up next week. So happens, we’re the only planet with a major Moon that does NOT orbit around our equator. The Moon instead circles us in the same flat plane as the plane of the solar system, called the zodiac. That makes the Moon periodically meet bright planets in our sky. We can also be thankful that the only two disks in our sky, the moon and sun, both appear the same size. This is true nowhere else, and it alone creates those amazing solar eclipses.

Neptune's single strangest feature are its bizarre winds, the fastest in the known universe, which blow with five times the speed of tornados. Tune in to hear about the blue, gassy planet, and how it is now at its brightest and closest of the year.

This week we’ll learn about Venus’ ferocious winds, just how slow the planet spins, and how the carbon dioxide bubbling planet could perfectly line up with the Sun.

Mars now reaches its dimmest point of the year, so nobody’s now observing the Red Planet. But many still think about it. As planning for human visits to Mars continues, researchers keep studying risk. As results accumulate from astronauts who’ve spent a long time on the ISS, astrobiologists grow more concerned about space travel’s medical consequences.

One of the most powerful questions humans ask about the cosmos is: Are we alone? While the science behind this inquiry is fascinating, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a reflection of our values, our fears, and most importantly, our enduring sense of hope.In "The Possibility of Life," acclaimed science journalist Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus to our contemporary quest for exoplanets.

The public is obsessed with planets beyond our solar system. One team announced finding a planet orbiting the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, with the putative planet orbiting Alpha’s companion, the much smaller and dimmer star known as Proxima. Its nearness at only 4.2 light-years has generated excited talk about sending a space probe.