One of the first things people learn about black holes is that they suck up everything that gets close to them, but that’s not entirely accurate. It’s true that once anything crosses the event horizon of a black hole it can never escape, but there is an important area around a black hole where the … Read more
British scientists have released the most detailed images of the icy surfaces of Jupiter’s two largest moons, Europa and Ganymede. The team of planetary scientists from the University of Leicester’s School of Physics and Astronomy, led by doctoral student Oliver King, used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to observe and … Read more
The crew of astronauts, whose mission was the fourth long-term mission launched by SpaceX to the International Space Station, has left for the US Aeronautics and Space Administration.NASAThe station was safely on Friday, on its return trip to Earth, capping a scientific mission that lasted for nearly six months. And the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, … Read more
Astronomers have observed the brightest flash of space light ever, emanating 2.4 billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers believe that this space flash was caused by the birth of a black hole. The gamma-ray burst, the most intense form of electromagnetic radiation, was first observed by telescopes in orbit around the Earth on October 9. Its … Read more
Nearly a decade after its launch in 2013, India’s Mars Orbiter mission has run out of fuel and will be grounded. The mission, which was the first mission to Mars by an Asian country, demonstrated a different approach to planetary science by building and launching it with a much smaller budget than is typical for … Read more
NASA’s InSight mission is dying a slow death, as the probe, located in the Elysium Planetia region of Mars, is gradually collecting more and more dust that was obscuring its solar panels. As the dust accumulates, the amount of energy the panels can generate decreases. This slow slide was accelerated by a recent massive dust … Read more
Astronomers have discovered a binary star system with the shortest orbits of binary stars ever discovered, as it takes only 51 minutes for one to orbit the other, according to RT. This system appears to be one of a rare class of binary stellar systems known as a “catastrophic variable” (semi-nova), in which a star … Read more