What Is a Parsec? The Cosmic Distance Unit Astronomers Use Beyond Light-Years
A parsec is a distance defined by parallax. Here is how astronomers use the unit to measure the space between stars and galaxies.
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Ivan Petricevic
Ivan Petricevic is an investigative journalist and researcher with more than a decade of experience covering ancient history, UAP phenomena, space, and science. He writes about space, science, and history for Večernji list and has appeared as an expert on Discovery Channel and History Channel. He founded Curiosmos, where he reports from primary sources, archaeological research, and field investigations.
Why Is the Sky Blue While Space Is Black? Earth’s Atmosphere Is the Difference
From the ground, the daytime sky seems to be a blue dome wrapped around Earth. Astronauts looking through a spacecraft window see something very different: a thin blue line at…
A 112°C Test Could Help Expose Forged Ancient Pottery
Archaeologists and museums may soon have a new way to test suspicious clay objects: a controlled heating experiment that separates pottery more than 1,000 years old from modern material. A…
Saqqara Excavation Reveals an Official’s Tomb and Three Sealed Sarcophagi
Archaeologists working at Saqqara have found the Old Kingdom tomb of a senior official named Sekhentyu-Ptah, along with burial shafts, three sealed stone sarcophagi and more than 100 ushabti figurines.…
Why Is Space So Cold If the Sun Is So Hot? The Answer Is Not What Most People Think
Space is often described as freezing, while the Sun is described as a furnace. Both descriptions can be true at the same time, but not in the simple way they…
A Housing Complex and Possible Wine Press Emerge Beside Egypt’s Temple of Sekhmet
A joint Egyptian-Chinese archaeological mission has uncovered a mud-brick housing complex and a stone installation that may have been used as a wine press beside the Temple of Sekhmet at…
A Second Milky Way Cloud Contains More Than 120 Molecules Linked to Prebiotic Chemistry
Astronomers have catalogued more than 120 molecular species in a cloud near the centre of the Milky Way. The finding matters because the cloud contains several compounds associated with the…
LED Imaging Helps Archaeologists See Buried Layers Hidden in Ordinary Soil
Archaeologists have developed a relatively inexpensive imaging system that can reveal differences hidden inside an excavation trench. Instead of lighting soil with ordinary white light, the prototype photographs it at…
Resin on 1,200-Year-Old Wallaby Teeth Reveals Rare Australian Ornaments
A handful of small teeth found in a Queensland rock shelter have turned out to be something far more unusual than animal remains. Archaeologists identified twelve wallaby incisors coated with…
MeerKAT Detects a Faint Hydrogen Signal From Billions of Light-Years Away
Astronomers have directly measured an extremely faint radio signal from neutral hydrogen billions of light-years away. The detection, made with South Africa’s MeerKAT array, gives researchers a new way to…
Atoms in Orbit Put Einstein’s Equivalence Principle to a New Test
Einstein’s theory of general relativity has survived another demanding test. Researchers used clouds of ultracold atoms aboard China’s space station to compare how two forms of rubidium respond to gravity,…
LiDAR Study Finds Ancient Maya Land Use Still Shapes Belize’s Forests
Some of the forests in Belize may still carry the ecological imprint of ancient Maya land use. A new study combines airborne LiDAR scans with archaeological remains and finds that…
Why Where an Ancient Object Is Found Matters More Than the Object Itself
When people imagine archaeology, they often picture a spectacular object being lifted from the ground: a gold ornament, a carved stone or a decorated pot. For archaeologists, the object is…
The Universe Is Making Fewer Stars—but Its Hydrogen Has Barely Declined
The universe is forming stars at less than half the rate it did roughly 4.5 billion years ago. A new survey now shows that this decline cannot be explained simply…
A Black Hole Erupted in X-Rays. Its Radio Jets Brightened 296 Days Later
A supermassive black hole in the galaxy NGC 1275 produced a powerful X-ray flare, and its radio emission brightened 296 days later. The long delay gives astronomers a rare way…
How Do Telescopes Work? The Real Reason Bigger Mirrors See Fainter Worlds
A telescope is often described as a device that makes distant objects look closer. That is true, but it leaves out the part that matters most to astronomers. The main…
Webb May Have Located the Galaxy Behind a 20-Year-Old Gamma-Ray Burst Mystery
For nearly two decades, astronomers have not been sure which galaxy produced the short gamma-ray burst GRB 061201. New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope point to a faint…
Webb Finds a Supernova From When the Universe Was Only Two Billion Years Old
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified a likely Type II supernova that exploded when the universe was only about two billion years old. The event, called SN…
NASA’s Roman Telescope Unfurls Its Antenna and Sunshade
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has successfully deployed its high-gain antenna and its visor-like sunshade, completing two of the observatory’s first major tests in space. The work is part…
The Moon’s Soil Could Hold a Timeline of Nearby Supernovae
The Moon has no wind, rain or active plate tectonics to erase its surface history. That makes its soil a possible archive of events that happened far beyond Earth. A…
A Faster Chemical Route Could Explain How Space Makes Complex Carbon Molecules
Large carbon-based molecules are common in space, turning up around dying stars, inside interstellar clouds, and in material returned from carbon-rich asteroids. The problem has been explaining how they form…
A Virtual Universe Lets Astronomers Watch Black Holes Grow for 13.5 Billion Years
Researchers have completed one of the largest computer simulations of cosmic history yet assembled. Called ASTRID, it follows the growth of galaxies and black holes from the universe’s early days…
What Is Darkening Venus’ Clouds? New Models Narrow the Possibilities
Venus looks pale yellow in ordinary photographs, but ultraviolet images reveal dark and bright bands moving through its upper clouds. Scientists have known about those markings for about a century.…
The Milky Way’s Gravity Can Fake a Dark-Matter Signal
Astronomers often treat the thin streams of stars around the Milky Way as sensitive tracers of dark matter. A new University of Washington simulation shows why that evidence needs to…