Featured Astrobites
Our latest posts
Guest: Fast and Curious: Rotation of Blue Straggler Stars in NGC 1851
What are blue straggler stars and how are they formed? By using spectroscopy, today’s authors explain the link between this question and how fast these objects spin!
How Galaxy Mergers Can Bridge The Stellar Age Gap in Spiral Arms
Can galaxy interactions help young and old stars in spiral arms get to know each other? These authors’ simulations may have an answer!
Can’t we just take a picture of an exoplanet?
If we want to know about the conditions for life on an Earth-like exoplanet, can’t we just take a picture of it? One where we can see continents, clouds and potential biospheres?
The short answer is we can’t. The long answer as to why not is found in today’s bite.
SED Fitting: How Astronomers Understand Galaxies Across Time
When studying distant galaxies, SED fitting is one tool to rule them all. But how can we learn the detailed history of entire galaxies from just a few snapshots?
What’s the (Lagrange) point?
There are a few locations in the solar system where the push and pull of gravity mellows out and you can orbit in (relative) peace. Read all about these islands of tranquility we call Lagrange points!
How to ID some extrasolar dusty snowballs
Exocomets are becoming more interesting, given their detections are more promising and well studied. So, naming them is of more importance now than ever. Today’s bite summarizes a paper that proposes a nomenclature for exocomets.
Beyond astro-ph
Astronomy beyond the research
Chapter 7 Summary Part 2: Energy Solutions by Rector and Yu, Climate Change for Astronomers
This post summarizes the second half of Chapter 7 of the book ‘Climate Change for Astronomers’, involving a discussion of energy sources available to us in the present, and the future, in order to understand the way forward for solutions to climate change. It also discusses how various solutions can be combined, how energy usage can be made more efficient, and how we can move towards creating a smarter and greener energy infrastructure.
The “Picture an Astronomer” Symposium
Today we highlight the “Picture an Astronomer” Symposium, with lectures and events happening in February and March!
A NICER solution for an aging X-ray telescope
From Sahana Parker: How NASA scientists, engineers and astronauts pulled off a high-stakes space telescope repair—one patch at a time!
Navigating careers in astronomy
Career advice
MIT PhysGAAP: Here to help with your physics graduate school application
MIT’s PhysGAAP Program pairs PhD applicants with grad student mentors, and provides resources for navigating the grad school application process. Apply by Nov. 11th!
Interested in science policy? Check out the Mirzayan Policy Graduate Fellowship!
Guest author Alex Belles tells us about his experiences in science policy as a grad student in NASEM’s Mirzayan Policy Fellowship program
A guide to applying to astro postdocs. Part 2: The application process
In Part 2 of this 2-part guide to applying to astro/physics postdocs, a few Astrobites authors share tips on applying to postdoc opportunities, based on their own personal experience.