The journal · The real sky
Instruments and missions
How we know any of it: telescopes, missions, and the people who did the work.
7 articles.
How we measure cosmic distances: the distance ladder
Each rung calibrates the next, which is the strength of the method and its weakness.
4 min read
Exoplanet detection methods explained
Nearly all of them were found indirectly, and each method is biased toward a different kind of planet.
4 min read
The women of Harvard's computers: Cannon, Leavitt, Fleming
Hired as calculators, paid less than the assistants, and they built the framework the field still uses.
4 min read
How telescopes work
A telescope's primary job is gathering light, not magnifying.
4 min read
JWST's biggest discoveries so far
Galaxies too big too early, objects nobody can classify, and one claim that got ahead of itself.
4 min read
Radio astronomy: seeing the invisible sky
A completely different sky, discovered by an engineer investigating telephone interference.
4 min read
The search for life: what SETI is doing
Looking for signals nature doesn't make, and the one candidate that never repeated.
4 min read
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