The Stellar Survey for June

This has been a month of writing and brunching and Big Life Decisions. Also, as per usual—it’s been a month in which lots of Space Stuff has happened.

How lucky we are, to live in a time when wonder like this is at the tips of everyone’s fingers.

• The hunt for ultralight dark matter: what is it, and how do we find it? | The breadth of space science never ceases to amaze me.

• Check this out: a new search for ripples in space from the beginning of time. | Some days my mind boggles so much I’m surprised I can still function and do human things.

• Look at this gorgeous photo of galaxy NGC1546, courtesy of Hubble! | The name is a bit technical, but the beauty is anything but.

  

  Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/David Thilker (JHU). Originaly retrieved from Space.com.

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• Should we be afraid to say hello to aliens? | Depends on if you’re a Star Wars or a Star Trek kind of person, I think.

• The JWST has done it again, and seen even farther back in time. | Turns out galaxies existed as early as 290 million years after the Big Bang!

• Space junk is eating away at the ozone because we are all in need of personal satellites that burn up in the atmosphere after they’ve outlived their usefulness. | No need to panic, EVERYTHING IS FINE.

• Is the universe actually infinite, or just so mind-bogglingly big that it feels that way? | Will we ever know for sure? Probably not, but here’s a guess.

• Tonight’s moon is a strawberry moon. Sweet! | Strawberry moons happen the night after the solstice and come along every 19-20 years!

• Thus far, we’ve relied on radio waves to send communications into space. Now, NASA is doing it with lasers! | Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase beam me up, Scotty, doesn’t it?

• Until we actually make it to Mars, meteorites from Mars that crash-land on Earth can give us clues about the Red Planet’s make-up. | Maybe Elon Musk should be the first to go and report from the surface.

• Bill Anders, the astronaut who took the famous “Earth Rise” photo back on December 24, 1968, died earlier this month at the age of 90, as a result of a plane crash. | He gave us many gifts, but this one will live on forever.

“We came all this way to explore the moon,” Anders said, “and the most important thing is we discovered the Earth.”

Image credit: Bill Anders. Originally retrieved from the NASA website.