Astronomy

A tawny owl screeches nearby in the dark and her mate replies, hooting eerily from the forest below. A white dome floats in the gloaming above a plain black doorway outlined with red light, like a portal to another dimension. I’m in Grizedale Forest, far from any light-polluting cities, to visit the Lake District’s first public observatory and planetarium, which opened in May.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.Grizedale Observatory offers immersive films in the planetarium and three-hour stargazing events that go on late into the night. There are sessions on astrophotography and, on moonless nights, dark sky astronomy with the chance to see “a glittering tapestry of stars, galaxies, nebulae and star...

A global research team led by Rice University physicist Pengcheng Dai has verified the presence of emergent photons and fractionalized spin excitations in an unusual quantum spin liquid. Reported in Nature Physics, the work points to the crystal cerium zirconium oxide (Ce2Zr2O7) as a clean three-dimensional example of this exotic state of matter. Quantum spin liquids have fascinated physicists for years because they could eventually support transformative technologies, including quantum computing and dissipationless energy transmission. Unlike ordinary magnets that settle into an orderly pattern, these materials avoid conventional magnetic order. Instead, their magnetic moments remain strongly quantum-entangled and in constant collective motion at temperatures close to absolute zero, produ...

Looking to the future can also often involve looking back, and as we witness an apparent resurgence in the development of increasingly large Space launchers from a number of competing nations, we also see echoes of the past from a time when ‘ultra-heavy’ Space launcher concepts once existed in proposals from the  biggest players of the day in the aerospace industry. So let’s for a while blow off the dust from some fascinating rocket designs that would have dwarfed Space X’s current Starship and were each intended to be the Saturn V 2.0… Nexus UNIQUE FEATURE: largest multi-chamber plug nozzle engine seen on any rocket design Early 1960s Rocket concept devised by team in the Convair Division of General Dynamics, led by German-American rocket propulsion engineer and Space travel visionary Kr...

There are many meteor showers throughout the year. Here are the most prominent. For a beginner’s guide on meteors – what they are, where they come from, and how best to observe them – start with our ‘How to observe meteors’ guide. The Quadrantid meteor shower radiant lies in northern Boötes. JanuaryShower: QuadrantidsActive: 26 Dec –12 JanPeak activity: 4 JanRate: up to 120 meteors per hourRadiant: Constellation BootesOrigin: Minor planet 2003 EH1 (a possible extinct comet) AprilShower: LyridsActive: 16-25 AprilPeak activity: 22 AprilRate: ~10 meteors per hourRadiant: Just inside the constellation of Hercules, near bright star Vega in LyraOrigin: Comet C/1861 GI Thatcher The radiant of the Lyrid meteor shower lies in eastern Hercules, south-west of brilliant Vega. MayShower: Eta Aquariids...