Joe Bauman

Entertainment

Rediscovering the moon’s strange beauty

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

Rovers, helicopters, AI and photos — A nearby planet in the news

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

What happened on the starry night when I gave up

For the first time that I could remember, I just gave up: I quit trying, on a dark, still, moonless night that was perfect for astronomy

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

Seeing the glorious Eagle Nebula, with Pillars of Creation

M16 is the Eagle Nebula, one of the grandest star-forming regions of the nearby Milky Way. It contains an open star cluster designated NGC 6611

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

Tales from Utahns who spied comet Neowise — plus their photos

Several Utahns share their experiences searching for and spotting comet Neowise while it was visible

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

This year’s (astronomy) fireworks came early

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

After a night of astrophotography challenges, awe and wonder at the night sky

It was night of multiple problems getting the telescope, laptop and other equipment set up and synced, but it yielded images of the ancient stars in M13

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

The myths around the constellation of Orion

Stories about Orion the hunter are varied and contradictory in ancient Greek and Roman mythology

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

Galaxy clusters and a beautiful illusion

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Utah

The color red and how people are ‘connected to the universe’

Seth Jarvis, the recently retired director of Clark Planetarium, used examples concerning the color red of how close connections we all have with distant titanic events in the universe

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Utah

What will become of the sun?

Is our star really destined for a beautiful, complex planetary nebula?

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

Mapping a cosmic pinpoint in space

Think of an object 16 miles across. It is 1,100 light-years away. Now imagine that you are tasked with mapping the object’s surface. Impossible? Not to two teams of scientists who set out to map a neutron star.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Entertainment

Hunting alien star clusters and black holes

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Utah

A beauty in space with a strange secret

The star city is NGC925, which is in a good location this season for astronomy, as seen from our hemisphere

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Catching Mercury’s transit across the sun

One astronomer’s quest to photograph Mercury as it eclipsed the sun

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Remote galaxies, exploding stars and exoplanets — Utah native tells of latest discoveries in astronomy

Amy C. Oliver, a Utah native who works for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, recently shared research, including just-released findings on new types of supernovas

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Hints of life under the ice of Saturn’s moon Enceladus?

Saturn’s small moon Enceladus is probably one of the most likely places in the solar system, outside Earth, to harbor life and it has puzzled scientists for decades

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

A plain little sister of Andromeda

Our glamorous next-door galaxy, Andromeda, gets all the attention. That leaves a lot for the other members of her family to live up to; unfortunately for viewers at home, they don’t. But the largest of them has intriguing aspects.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

4 late-September astronomy festivals in and around Utah

See the night sky at late September events in Kamas, Capitol Reef National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument and Nevada’s Great Basin National Park

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Utah scientist helps unlock X-ray secrets of the universe

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Touching the sun for science and safety

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Joe Bauman: TESS, planet-hunter orbiting telescope, ends first year with impressive results

TESS, which is NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, finished examining close stars in the southern skies in July, making impressive discoveries. It now turns its cameras to stars north of the equator.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

The Deer Lick Group of galaxies are not members of the same gang. The largest is NGC 7331, with its striking dust lanes and spiral arms, estimated at a distance of 43 million light-years. The galaxy to its lower left, a face-on spiral called NGC 7335, is

Family

Joe Bauman: How many galaxies in the universe? Billions — and they cluster together

Most galaxies are members of galaxy clusters; beyond clusters are superclusters; and the largest structures known are made of galaxies, clusters and superclusters

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Utah

Joe Bauman: BYU professor to help in ambitious search for life or pre-life chemistry on Saturn moon

Dr. Jani Radebaugh of Brigham Young University has been named to assist in an ambitious quest for the type of chemistry that might lead to life (“pre-biotic chemistry”) — and possibly signs of life itself — on Saturn’s moon Titan.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

Family

Joe Bauman: Bugs in the system and a scorpion in a Jeep

You never know when some decision from the distant past is going to sting you

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

NGC 7479 is an unusual barred-spiral galaxy that NASA estimates is 110 million light-years away. Nicknamed the Propeller Galaxy, it has the odd characteristic of spinning in opposite directions. The "tightly-wound arms" seen in photos taken in ordinary li

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Joe Bauman: Beautiful barred spiral galaxies a sign of galactic maturity

Unknown to science until the past 50 years, we live in a particular type of galaxy called the barred spiral. These are some of the most unusual and beautiful galaxies.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

The first photo of a black hole, the supermassive one at the center of the M87 galaxy, as imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope, eight radio telescopes scattered around the world that combined their data.

Family

Joe Bauman: Anatomy of a monster

Now that a black hole has been photographed, what are their characteristics?

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

An artist's vision of the Psyche spacecraft exploring the metallic asteroid. The craft is built by Space System Loral's satellite manufacturing plant in Palo Alto, Calif.

Family

Joe Bauman: NASA plans visit to a strange solar system object

Arizona State University scientist to head first exploration of a new type of solar system object.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

One that got away — the face-on barred spiral galaxy known as M61. It is part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, best seen in the spring. M61 is around 55 million light-years distant.

Family

Joe Bauman: What could go wrong?

A strange, funny thing happened on the way to a galaxy.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist

The first photograph of a black hole, the supermassive one at the center of the M87 galaxy, as imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope, a set of eight radio telescopes spanning our globe, which worked together to capture the view. Heated gas whipping around

Family

Joe Bauman: Expanding knowledge about black holes with first first photo

The first-ever photo of a black hole in space, released April 10, is a scientific triumph. Eight huge radio telescopes were united by computer to make an image of the hole’s event horizon as detailed as if taken by an instrument as wide as the Earth.

By Joe Bauman, Columnist