Taken just prior to landing…the “image” shown of it actually landing was not real but a simulation.
India and Russia had been locked in a race to the lunar south pole. The Luna-25 spacecraft that crashed was the first moon-landing spacecraft launched by Russia’s space agency in almost five decades. Roscosmos officials said Sunday they lost contact with the lander after it fired its engines in preparation for a descent to the surface.
It wasn’t much of a “race,” tbh. India had been planning this for years, while Russia randomly launched a craft that had virtually no chance of succeeding.
Congratulations, ISRO! You should have some company over the next couple of years. Here’s hoping that international cooperation and not competition will lead humanity to permanent settlements on the Moon. Mars, and beyond…
A NASA mission has observed a supermassive black hole pointing its highly energetic jet straight toward Earth. Don’t panic just yet, though. As fearsome as this cosmic event is, it’s located at a very safe distance of about 400 million light-years away.
The two planets are in circles that kind of look like, er….let’s just call the whole thing a cosmic donut (the outer “halo” is the protoplanetary disc of gas and dust from which planets eventually coalesce).
We already know that more than one object can share the same orbit; Jupiter has a collection of 120,000 asteroids following its same path around the Sun, for example. Earth has one, too. But although it’s theoretically possible, astronomers have never discovered two whole planets sharing the same orbit around a star before.
Hmm…the language here is a bit misleading. The two objects are technically not both “planets.”
The article comments later on that the object in the dotted line circle is “a cloud of debris about twice the mass of our Moon trailing a bit behind the innermost gas giant” in one of its LaGrange points (where “Trojan” asteroids follow gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn). So it’s way too early to say that “two” planets formed in the same orbit.
Still, this is the first time that astronomers have spotted two such objects this close to one another in the same orbit. Who knows if both will remain viable (the debris cloud could become partly or mostly absorbed by the gas giant with the rest either being expelled or thrust into separate orbits).
So why is this called a “cosmic unicorn”?
Apparently because although such Trojans “are allowed to exist by theory, but no one has ever detected them.”
Um. OK.
So, like, totally NOT at all like this? Kind of a bummer, really…
Images of the Orion Nebula, c/o ESA and NASA (it’s complicated…)
For the first time ever, a team of international scientists detected a carbon compound known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on), or CH3+, in d203-506. CH3+ is significant for understanding how life began on Earth — and how it might develop elsewhere.
Images of the Orion Nebula, c/o ESA and NASA (it’s complicated…)
For the first time ever, a team of international scientists detected a carbon compound known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on), or CH3+, in d203-506. CH3+ is significant for understanding how life began on Earth — and how it might develop elsewhere.
A European-built orbital satellite was launched into space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on dark energy and dark matter, the mysterious cosmic forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.
Like the James Webb telescope, the Euclid will be positioned in a LaGrange point (L2, in this case), rather than in high Earth orbit.
If all goes well.
It’s interesting that the Guardian article says the telescope was “designed and built entirely by Esa,” although NASA supplied parts and its launching pad was made available and the telescope was launched using a SpaceX rocket. And ESA consists of nearly 2000 scientists from the US, Canada, and Japan as well as various European countries.
It’s a joint project. That’s how science should work in the first place.
(For more on dark matter, dark energy, gravity, and quantum mechanics, check this out.)
The record-breaking plume reached nearly 6,000 miles into space – covering the distance between Ireland and Japan – and poured water into the void at an estimated rate of 300 litres a second.
Note that the water jetted out into space nearly 40 times longer than the actual size of the moon (about 500 in diameter, or as the Gurdian puts it “500-mile-wide” for those who forgot the meaning of “diameter).
Enceladus is probably the best bet for life elsewhere in the solar system due to its water — and while whipping around Saturn once per day, which is likely the reason for underwater volcanos and other vents that may provide the proper chemistry for life.
Betelgeuse, the closest red giant to Earth, has long been understood to move between brighter and dimmer in 400-day cycles. But from late 2019 to early 2020, it underwent what astrophysicists called “the great dimming”, as a dust cloud obscured our view of the star.
Now, it is glowing at 150% of its normal brightness, and is cycling between brighter and dimmer at 200-day intervals – twice as fast as usual…It is currently the seventh brightest star in the night sky – up three places from its usual tenth brightest.
Betelgeuse is the closet red giant Star to our solar system, one of the shoulders of the Greek constellation of Orion.
The cultural information in the linked article was actually more interesting than the phenomenon observed. For instance, the fact that an Aboriginal people in Australia saw it long before the Greeks did was something I didn’t know.
And that the Greek name comes originally from the Arabic “bat al-jawzāʾ” meaning “giant’s shoulder.”
And all three cultures saw the star as connected with fire held by a giant hunter of some sort.
And so have ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and probably everyone else, too. We just can’t help personifying even the stars.
The kicker?
When it does eventually explode, it could – over the course of a week – grow so bright that it will be visible during daylight, and cast shadows at night.
Now that’s something I’d like to be around to see. Hmm. If only I could manage to live for another 10- to 100,000 years…
M Thomas Apple Author Page 