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Astronomers Discover Closest Black Hole to Earth
Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i reveals first dormant, stellar-mass black hole in our cosmic backyard
Astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance our understanding of the evolution of binary systems.
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Maybe this time, their helicopter can catch the falling rocket booster.
SpaceX has pioneered reuseable rocket boosters by guiding them back waiting drone ships, but Rocket Lab’s approach is to try and slow them down with parachutes and then catch them on a hook dangled from a waiting helicopter. An attempt in May almost worked but slipped away, and now they’ll try again in a few days.
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The last solar eclipse of 2022 in pictures: Incredible photos from around the world
Millions of people witnessed the moon appear to take a "bite" out of the sun.
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NASA's Mars rover Curiosity reaches intriguing salty site after treacherous journey
After a treacherous journey, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has reached an area that is thought to have formed billions of years ago when the Red Planet's water disappeared.
This region of Mount Sharp, the Curiosity rover's Martian stomping ground, is rich in salty minerals that scientists think were left behind when streams and ponds dried up. As such, this region could hold tantalizing clues about how the Martian climate changed from being similar to Earth's to the frozen, barren desert that Curiosity explores today.
The salty minerals that enrich this area of Mount Sharp were first spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter years before Curiosity touched down on the Martian surface in 2012.
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Supernova 'alert system' could warn us of dying stars about to explode
As a cocoon of material forms around massive red supergiant stars, it causes dimming that could indicate they are about to explode.
A newly devised 'early warning system' could help warn astronomers when a massive star is about to explode and end its life in a supernova.
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Asteroid-smashing planetary defense test was a success, NASA confirms
Last month’s DART mission ‘nudged’ an asteroid moonlet enough to noticeably change its orbit
When a spacecraft slammed into an asteroid last month, it pushed it closer to its companion and sped up its orbit by about 32 minutes. It’s a huge milestone for the field of planetary defense; it establishes that it may be possible for humans to significantly change the path of a potentially hazardous asteroid — especially if we have warning that one is on the way.
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How to make a telescope out of the sun
A trick of physics could help us find alien life
https://youtu.be/fSQXoyEPSkI
NASA’s Artemis I launch has officially been delayed until November
We’ll have to wait a little longer to see if NASA’s megarocket gets off the ground
The long-anticipated launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket has been pushed back to mid-November after NASA waved off its September 27th launch plans in the wake of Hurricane Ian. The space agency announced on Friday that it’s aiming to squeeze in the Artemis I launch between November 12th and November 27th.
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NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid to see what would happen
The DART spacecraft is gone, but the science is just beginning.
A NASA spacecraft slammed into the surface of a distant asteroid at 7:14PM ET on Monday night, the climax of the agency’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).
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DART Tests Autonomous Navigation System Using Jupiter and Europa
After capturing images of one of the brightest stars in Earth’s night sky, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test’s (DART) camera recently set its sights on another eye-catching spectacle: Jupiter and its four largest moons.
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NASA’s InSight ‘Hears’ Its First Meteoroid Impacts on Mars
The Mars lander’s seismometer has picked up vibrations from four separate impacts in the past two years.
NASA’s InSight lander has detected seismic waves from four space rocks that crashed on Mars in 2020 and 2021. Not only do these represent the first impacts detected by the spacecraft’s seismometer since InSight touched down on the Red Planet in 2018, it also marks the first time seismic and acoustic waves from an impact have been detected on Mars.
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A change in Jupiter's orbit could make Earth even friendlier to life
A shift in Jupiter's orbit could make Earth's surface even more hospitable to life than it already is, new research suggests.
University of California-Riverside (UCR) scientists simulated alternative arrangements of our solar system, finding that when Jupiter's orbit was more flattened — or 'eccentric' — it would cause major changes in our planet's orbit too.
And this change caused by the orbit of Jupiter — the solar system's most massive planet by far — could impact Earth's ability to support life for the better.
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‘Moonwalking’ spacesuits for NASA’s Artemis III mission will be built by Axiom Space
The contract is worth $228.5 million
NASA is already packing for its next Moon landing, and it’s ordering some new spacesuits for the trip. It has awarded a $228.5 million contract to Axiom Space to make a “moonwalking system” for the agency’s return trip to the lunar surface, NASA announced Wednesday.
Axiom was one of two companies in the running to make spacesuits for NASA’s Artemis program, which is aiming to send astronauts back to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. NASA already has a limited supply of spacesuits for use on the International Space Station, but lunar spacesuits will have to be very different. In addition to extreme temperature swings, they’ll have to contend with the Moon’s gravity and the notoriously problematic lunar dust that has a tendency to stick to everything.
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‘Large’ hydrogen leak foils NASA’s schedule for Artemis I mission
NASA will not attempt to launch its Space Launch System in the coming days, the agency announced, skipping potential launch windows on Monday and Tuesday. The announcement comes after two scrubbed launch attempts of the massive rocket, and will likely result in a delay of several weeks.
August 29th, 2022 was supposed to be the debut launch of the Space Launch System (SLS). That launch attempt was scrubbed after engineers noticed an issue with the temperature of one of the rocket’s four engines. Second launch attempt was foiled by a persistent hydrogen leak that Artemis mission manager Michael Sarafin described as “large,” in a press conference after the scrub. A small hydrogen leak was also noticed during the attempt on the 29th, but this was much larger.
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James Webb Space Telescope snags its 1st direct photo of an alien world
The HIP 65426 b gas giant planet photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope on the background of the Digitized Sky Survey
The James Webb Space Telescope took its first direct image of a planet orbiting a distant star, proving its potential to revolutionize exoplanet research.
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Rocket Lab launches Swedish satellite but fails to catch booster with helicopter
Telemetry problems with the returning first stage nixed a catch attempt. Rocket Lab launched a Swedish research satellite to orbit today but didn't manage to snag the returning booster with a helicopter.
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Hubble telescope peeks through 'cosmic keyhole' in stunning photo
It's not everyday that you can peek through a keyhole in the cosmos, but Hubble did just that — and it didn't even realize it.
A new photo of the reflection nebula NGC 1999 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) on Oct. 24 shows a "peculiar portrait" of the swirling cloud of gas and dust. The nebula is a relic of a star's formation, V380 Orion, which can be seen in the center of the image, according to an ESA statement(opens in new tab) that accompanied the image.
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Starlink signals can be reverse-engineered to work like GPS—whether SpaceX likes it or not
Elon said no thanks to using his mega-constellation for navigation. Researchers went ahead anyway.
Todd Humphreys’s offer to SpaceX was simple. With a few software tweaks, its rapidly growing Starlink constellation could also offer precise position, navigation, and timing.
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New ‘Pillars of Creation’ just dropped.
JWST’s latest shot takes on the iconic Hubble image ‘Pillars of Creation’, and the result is gorgeous. Also, so sparkly.
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Space photos: The most amazing images this week!
A spacecraft gets an incredible view of the sun, a star system displays puzzling rings and Stromboli volcano erupts in Europe. These are some of this week's top photos.
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NASA's Titan Dragonfly will touch down on a field of dunes and shattered ice
NASA's Dragonfly mission to Saturn's largest moon will touch down on a terrain of dunes and shattered, icy bedrock, according to a new analysis of radar imagery from the Cassini spacecraft. Launching in 2027, Dragonfly is a rotorcraft that will arrive in 2034 and explore Titan from the air. Its range will be far greater than that of a wheeled rover, with Dragonfly capable of covering around 10 miles (16 kilometers) in each half-hour flight, according to NASA. Over the span of its two-year mission it will explore an area hundreds of miles or kilometers across. However, before taking to the sky on its own, Dragonfly must first arrive on Titan under a parachute, soft-landing on frozen terrain that is hidden from easy viewing by the dense hydrocarbon smog that fills the moon's atmosphere.
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SpaceX astronaut missions for NASA: Crew-5
SpaceX has launched astronauts to the International Space Station and returned them to Earth for NASA since 2020. The company's current astronaut missions for NASA are Crew-5, which launched on Oct. 5, and Crew-4 currently at the station.
Crew-5 is made up of: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Casada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina. They will reach the station on Oct. 6 at 4:57 p.m. EDT (2057 GMT). The Crew-4 astronauts are NASA's Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins and the European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti.
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NASA is studying whether SpaceX can visit the Hubble Space Telescope
The feasibility study will examine whether or not SpaceX can give Hubble a boost
SpaceX and NASA have agreed to figure out whether or not a SpaceX ship could visit and potentially breathe new life into the iconic Hubble Space Telescope. They announced that they were partnering on a study that would look into whether or not that kind of mission was even possible.
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NASA is about to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test is about to reach its final destination
Dimorphos is a lump of space rock so far away from Earth that we don’t even know what it looks like — and on Monday, we’re going to smash it with a spacecraft. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will be traveling at more than 14,000 miles per hour when it hits the asteroid, in what has to be one of the most metal science experiments of all time.
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New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows off its capabilities closer to home with its first image of Neptune. Not only has Webb captured the clearest view of this distant planet’s rings in more than 30 years, but its cameras reveal the ice giant in a whole new light.
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SpaceX plans to launch another big batch of its Starlink satellites to orbit Sunday night (Sept. 18), and you can watch the action live.
SpaceX plans to loft 54 more Starlink broadband satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida Sunday at 8:18 p.m. EDT (0018 GMT on Sept. 19). You can watch at Space.com, or directly via SpaceX. The launch has been delayed five consecutive times due to bad weather.
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Harvest Moon 2022 : September's full moon thrills stargazers around the world
The full moon of September lit up the night sky this weekend in a dazzling lunar sight enjoyed by skywatchers around the world.
September's full moon peaked on Saturday (Sept. 10), but did appear fully illuminated to casual observers in the day before and after its lunar show. It also marked the Harvest Moon of 2022, since this full moon was closest to the September equinox on Sept. 22 that will mark the changing seasons on Earth.
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James Webb Space Telescope snaps mind-boggling image of Tarantula Nebula
The James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a spectacular and unprecedented view of a star-forming region known as the Tarantula Nebula.
A combination of the James Webb Space Telescope's high-resolution infrared instruments reveal thousands of never-before-seen young stars in the stellar nursery, formally named 30 Doradus.
The incredible new detail picked up by the $10 billion space telescope shows gas and dust in the nebula, as well as distant background galaxies.
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Watch live now: Russian cosmonauts spacewalking outside ISS
Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev are spacewalking outside the International Space Station to work in its new European robot arm.
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NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) is almost ready for liftoff.
This highly anticipated rocket launch has been over a decade in the making and marks NASA’s return to crewed missions to the moon. This mission is called Artemis I, and while there won’t be any astronauts on board during this launch, it will serve as a test for the future goal of putting the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon.
NASA plans on launching the SLS rocket on Monday, August 29th, 2022. It will have a two-hour launch window starting at 8:33AM ET. This means the rocket could take off anytime between 8:33AM ET and 10:33AM ET, if there are no delays.
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