The Galactic Inquirer

Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy

Contest Prize Winner: Artificial Intelligences and Machines (AIs/AMs)as Catalysts for First Contact with Alien Societies

Martina Guja Zagonel – Liceo Scientifico Bonaventura Cavalieri, Verbania, Italy Introduction With recent advancements and ongoing progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI), it's conceivable that in the...

Contest Prize Winner: Interlinked: The Mystery of Quantum Entanglement

Sebastian Sousa -- St. Patrick’s School of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Introduction Have you ever experienced an eerie coincidence? Thinking of someone just as they call...

Contest Prize Winner: The Solar System from the Perspective of Space Probes

Milena Niemczyk -- 1st Nicolaus Copernicus Secondary School, Bielsko-Biata, Poland Introduction Our eyes have always been directed towards the night sky. The inventions of the telescope and...

Contest Prize Winner: Should We Send Robots or Humans into Space?

Marcus Mount -- Deer Valley High School, Antioch, CA, USA When we think about it, space exploration is arguably humanity’s most exciting and monumental work. We...

Contest Prize Winner: The Sky Beneath

Moneth Claire Corpuz -- Deer Valley High School, Antioch, CA, USA “The sky is fake.” Meina recalled the words of a delusional passerby near the Academy....

Multi-Spectral Imagery of the Multi-phase ISM in M33

We investigate star formation in the Sc(s) II-III galaxy M33 by analyzing eight prominent HII regions using multi-wavelength data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and optical imagery. Results indicate that dust emission is a compact tracer of high-mass star formation, while PAH and H-alpha emissions decline more slowly with galactocentric radius.

Dispatches from the Cosmos — Winter 2025

Just like the dust that stubbornly besmirches your computer monitor, bookcase, and ancestral credenza, cosmic dust is now recognized to have a multiplicity of origins.  For decades, astronomers thought that aging red giant stars produced most of the dust responsible for obscuring and reddening our views of nebulae and more distant stars ...

Sticking Close to Home #2 – Bode’s Law and Planetary Spacings

There are definite interrelations between the spacings of the planets – they are much more than giant rocks randomly flying through space.  There is order and a scheme, a cosmic dance of the planets as some romantics like to say.

Latest news

Exploring Galactic Ecosystems (II) – New Insights from Radio Surveys

Galactic ecosystems encompass the varied complexes of inter-relating stellar, nebular, and other matter that are actively forming new stars.  These include molecular clouds, cloud cores, protostellar and protoplanetary systems, HII regions and starbursts.

Exploring Galactic Ecosystems (I) – An Introduction to the Nebular Birth Sites of Stars, Planets, and Life 

It is not hyperbole to state that galactic ecosystems have spawned pretty much everything that we hold dear – including ourselves.  These nebular nurseries have incubated all the stars, planetary systems, and many of the complex molecules known to humanity.

Strange Features on the Far Side of the Moon: A Closer Look at Paracelsus C

More than fifty years ago, Apollo 15 photographed something unusual on the far side of the Moon. In a panoramic photograph taken from lunar orbit, two bright, sharply defined objects stood out from the otherwise subdued landscape on the floor of a crater called Paracelsus C. Today we can take a much closer look.

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you

Advancing Astronomical Literacy via Student Writing Contests

It is tempting to say that any well-educated person should know what it takes to be scientifically literate.  But what does scientific literacy really involve?  Given that scientific literacy is a key goal of most science education standards and frameworks, considerable ink has been dedicated to utilizing the term in pedagogical papers.  

Interstellar Communications

Introduction: It took less than two billion years for our...