Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Ingenuity – The Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its planned five test flights. The final one of these included landing at a new site that it had not touched before (though it took images of the site during its previous flight), and climbing to a record altitude of 33 feet.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Black Hole Magnetic Field – In 2019, astronomers unveiled the first ever picture of a black hole, or more precisely, the material surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Earliest Cluster of Galaxies – When the first stars formed in the early Universe, essentially all of space was filled with neutral hydrogen gas. Much of the light emitted by these first stars was in the ultraviolet, but neutral hydrogen absorbs ultraviolet, obscuring observations of them.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Perseverance Lands – NASA’s latest planetary mission, a rover named Perseverance, landed on Mars February 18. The rover weighs over a ton on Earth, and is seven feet high and ten feet long, plus an arm that extends out.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Supernova Age – A new analysis of a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud by scientists at Purdue University shows that the supernova should have been visible in the far south of Earth 1,700 years ago, but no record has been found of it having been seen.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Dark Matter Mystery Solved – In 2018 and 2019, astronomers reported finding two small galaxies that appeared to have little if any dark matter. This is unusual as essentially all galaxies measured for it contain far more dark matter than ordinary matter.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
OSIRIS-REx is the space probe that flew by the small near-Earth asteroid Bennu on October 20 and collected a sample of its surface material. When its controllers in mission control took images of the sample mechanism, they found that the sampling had been overly successful.… Continue reading.
Astronomy and space news summarized by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources
Nobel Prizes – The Nobel Prize committee includes astronomy as part of physics and this year three astronomers split the physics prize. Roger Penrose received half of the award for his mathematical work on the properties, even existence, of black holes.… Continue reading.