Category: Solar System

Our solar system

Massive, magnetic stars beyond the Milky Way detected for the 1st time

NeRD

For the first time, astronomers have detected the magnetic fields of massive, blazingly hot stars outside our galaxy. They’re stars that actually live in our galactic companions, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).  Discovering stellar magnetism in these satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, both of which have a large population of young stars, offers scientists a unique chance to study actively forming stars. It could also answer the question of how much mass a star can pile on before it loses stability. Magnetism is…

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NASA’s X-59 ‘quiet’ supersonic jet passes key safety review ahead of 1st test flight

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NASA’s new X-59 supersonic jet has successfully completed its Flight Readiness Review, marking a pivotal step towards its first flight.  The review, conducted by independent experts from across NASA, evaluated the project team’s approach to safety for the public and staff during ground and flight testing, as well as the team’s analysis of hazards that may arise. In turn, the review provides valuable insights and recommendations to the X-59 team as they prepare for further analysis ahead of the jet’s maiden flight.  “It’s not a pass-fail,” Cathy Bahm, NASA’s Low…

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Astronaut’s diary found among fallen space shuttle debris added to National Library of Israel

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The handwritten journal pages of Israel’s first astronaut have been added to the country’s national library in Jerusalem, more than 20 years after they were found among the debris from the NASA tragedy that claimed his life. Ilan Ramon wrote most of the diary while he was in orbit aboard the space shuttle Columbia, serving as an STS-107 payload specialist on the winged spacecraft’s last, ill-fated flight. The found pages document Ramon’s day-to-day life in space, from his hygiene routine to the research he performed on behalf of NASA and…

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James Webb Space Telescope finds a dusty skeleton in this starburst galaxy’s closet

NeRD

The dwarf galaxy NGC 4449 is the star of the show in the James Webb Space Telescope‘s latest cosmic portrait. Located 12.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs, NGC 4449 has much in common with our very own Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the satellite galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. Both are small and irregular in shape and each has a distinctive bar running through its center. However, whereas the LMC has one extreme region of star formation, which is the 30 Doradus region famously…

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The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ series finale is a mixed bag (review)

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Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Star Trek: Discovery” season 5, episode 10 Here we are, six years, eight months and six days later, and, to paraphrase a well-known “Star Trek” alum, Oh my, the world has drastically changed during that time. And so has “Star Trek.” You may remember that, way back on Nov. 2, 2015, news trickled out that CBS was going to reboot “Star Trek” in some way, shape or form, giving producers a year or so to put something together before the show’s 50th anniversary in September 2016.…

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Euclid space telescope finds 1.5 trillion orphan stars wandering the Perseus cluster (images)

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Using the Euclid space telescope, scientists have discovered a staggering 1.5 trillion orphan stars drifting through a massive cluster of thousands of galaxies, one of the largest structures in the cosmos.  These orphan stars, ripped free from their own galaxies, are filling the space between the galaxies of the Perseus cluster with ghostly blue light. This so-called “intracluster” light is so faint that it is many thousands of times darker than the night sky over Earth.  By observing this intracluster light in the Perseus cluster, which is located 240 million…

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Bejeweled galaxy of ‘Bernice’s Hair’ sparkles in new Hubble Telescope photo

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A bejeweled galaxy shines brightly in a stunning new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope.  The nearby spiral galaxy, formally known as NGC 4689, lies only 54 million light-years from Earth. It is located in the constellation Coma Berenices, which means “Berenice’s Hair” in Latin and refers to Queen Berenice II of Egypt. As such, NGC 4689 swirls through the Queen’s sparkling strands.  And that name once had a literal meaning. “Some people of Berenice’s time would have meant this quite literally, as the story goes that her court astronomer…

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Is it time to put a dimmer on the push for space solar power?

NeRD

The thought of beaming power to an energy-hungry Earth from space has long been studied. It was first proposed over 80 years ago in science fiction.  “It was quiet in the officer’s room of Solar Station #5 – except for the soft purring of the mighty Beam Director somewhere far below,” wrote renowned author Isaac Asimov in his April 1941 story “Reason” appearing in the magazine “Astounding Science Fiction.” Asimov had his characters tending a solar energy collection station in space that routed energy rays to receivers on Earth, as…

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The Milky Way’s heart shines over construction site of world’s largest telescope

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Construction of the Extremely Large Telescope has reached another milestone, with the completion of the dome’s steel skeleton.  The European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) — the world’s largest visible- and infrared-light telescope — is under development on the Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile’s Atacama Desert and is expected to see its “first light” by 2028.  ESO recently shared a stunning new nighttime photo taken from inside of the dome on April 3. The photo captures the telescope’s progress with the Milky Way‘s heart overhead and the rest…

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Colossal X-class solar flare suggests return of sunspot group that fueled May’s epic auroras (video)

NeRD

The colossal sunspot group AR3664 responsible for the epic May 2024 solar storms and widespread auroras is back — well, almost. Yesterday (May 27), a powerful X-class solar flare erupted from the sun‘s southeastern limb, peaking around 3:08 a.m. EDT (0708 GMT).  Solar flares are energetic eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the sun’s surface that occur when magnetic energy accumulating in the solar atmosphere is released. They are categorized by size into lettered groups, with X-class being the most powerful. Within each class, numbers from 1-10 (and beyond for X-class…

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