NAU Astronomy Club

05/05/2026

An update to an experiment run by Henry Cavendish in 1773 could be a cheaper and faster way to spot a potential dark matter particle – and may be 10,000 times more sensitive.

05/05/2026

2 likes. "Flagstaff, ADOT pioneer dark-sky lighting model with global impact"

04/28/2026

This crabby joke gave me cancer.

[slaps “gemiknee”]

I poke fun, but please don't get me wrong. It’s ok to use astrology for entertainment or to feel culturally connected. My wife does astrology for fun & we lovingly joke about her “woo-f**kery.” She doesn't believe in it. It is just something she finds culturally interesting, so if that’s how you use it, then cool beans. Regardless of what she says, I still think my sign should be a whiskey bottle and a book. I feel that is more accurate than whatever an Aquarius is.

So, how do we know astrology doesn't predict personality and life events? Because astrology has been put to the test, even according to standards agreed upon by leading astrologers. Results? It’s no better than guessing. But don’t take my word for it (or anything, really). You can read more below at your convenience.

Look, I know you don’t have to read whatever I post. This isn’t a decree from a rich aries-tocrat [slaps knee]; it's just a suggestion from some schmuck trying to use crappy humor to trick you into learning more science and critical thinking on social media, of all places. But if you choose to invest time in enriching your understanding, then that’s awesome.

Key takeaway: Using astrology for entertainment is fine, but I don't recommend using it to interpret everyday events, complex ranges of personality traits, or navigate life decisions because it is Ta**us s**t.

https://sgtscholar.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/astrology-put-to-the-test/

PS: two things:

1) If you like the content here, please consider donating to charity. And by charity, I mean my Patreon. (Crayon snacks and beer aren’t free.)

https://www.patreon.com/sgtscholar

2) Believe it or not, the other admins and I have lives in meatspace, and we try to limit our social media addiction. (Stop laughing, it can happen.) Because of this, we can’t always read every single comment. But it seems the vast majority are typically congruent with our guidelines, so thank you for helping us make our comment section a relatively decent-ish place, at least as far as the internet goes. (That’s not exactly a high bar, but it is still appreciated.) We believe these guidelines are (or what at least ought to be) common sense, for lack of a better term. (Insert obligatory jokes/gripes about common sense here). If you haven’t had the chance to familiarize yourself with these guidelines, you can easily find them on our website or pinned at the top of the page. Thanks!

Comic credit: Zachary Kanin, published Dec 7, 2009, in The New Yorker.

01/14/2026

However, after two years of continuous analysis of images with the red dots, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute's Cosmic Dawn Center have found the explanation in the most powerful phenomenon in our universe: black holes. The red dots have thus given researchers insight into how the universe's first black holes were born.

--- by University of Copenhagen
edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) went into operation, red dots in its images have puzzled researchers around the world. Now, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have explained these enigmatic findings, revealing the most violent forces in the universe concealed in a cocoon of io...

12/19/2025

The telescope will help scientists answer big-picture questions about everything from water deposits in the Milky Way to what happened in the first second after the big bang.

12/17/2025

On 19 December 2025, interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will at long last make its closest approach to Earth.
https://www.sciencealert.com/alien-comet-3i-atlas-is-just-about-to-make-its-closest-approach-to-earth

12/16/2025

For 2 decades, astronomers have puzzled over how supermassive could exist less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Normal simply couldn't provide enough fuel to create such massive black holes that quickly. ⚫️🌌

This month, astronomers using the James Space Telescope said they’ve found the 1st compelling evidence to solve this cosmic mystery. They found that monster stars - weighing between 1,000 and 10,000 times the mass of our sun - existed in the early . And they said these monster stars collapsed directly into supermassive black holes.

Find out more about the monster stars from the cosmic dawn:
https://earthsky.org/space/monster-stars-from-the-cosmic-dawn/

📸 Image via AstroGraphix_Visuals/ Pixabay.

12/16/2025

12/16/2025

12/07/2025

The Sun and Its Missing Colors (APOD: 2025 Dec 07)
Image Credit: Nigel Sharp (NSF), FTS, NSO, KPNO, AURA, NSF
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251207.html

Explanation: It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Here are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device. The spectrum was created at the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory and shows, first off, that although our white-appearing Sun emits light of nearly every color, it appears brightest in yellow-green light. The dark patches in the featured spectrum arise from gas at or above the Sun's surface absorbing sunlight emitted below. Since different types of gas absorb different colors of light, it is possible to determine what gasses compose the Sun. Helium, for example, was first discovered in 1868 on a solar spectrum and only later found here on Earth. Today, the majority of spectral absorption lines have been identified - but not all.

https://www.nsf.gov/
https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noao-02592/
https://www.nso.edu/
https://noirlab.edu/public/programs/kitt-peak-national-observatory/
https://www.aura-astronomy.org/
https://www.nsf.gov/

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=251207