This week in space: the remarkable things you missed

There was enough going on the Earth to keep us busy this week, but do not forget to watch from time to time. Here is everything you missed galactic during Halloween and early voting.

NASA happenings

Two NASA historical missions broke down this week: the 11-year Dawn mission to explore the two biggest objects of the asteroid belt year of the Kepler space telescope that discovered thousands of exoplanets.

Although the two conclusions of the mission are expected, it is sad to see them come to an end. Fortunately, the data they have provided will make discoveries for years to come. And ni is on a collision course with the Earth. Dawn orbits around the dwarf planet Ceres for decades, and Kepler is 94 million kilometers away.

Farewell, brave travelers and thanks for all the scientific knowledge.

But let's urge Parker's solar probe to break a record and get closer to the sun than any other spacecraft.

Hubble is awake; Opportunity is not

Despite our letter to the March Rover Opportunity, he has still not woken up and has not responded to NASA's many messages since it was became enveloped by a dust storm that began in May.

NASA will continue to send more messages, and scientists hope that increased winds will dissipate Oppy's solar panels.

Meanwhile, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is up and running again.

A gyroscope or a device for measuring the speed at which the spacecraft rotates, had failed. This meant that Hubble could not turn and lock on new targets. A backup gyroscope did not prove useful in case of malfunction.

The backup has been recovered, so expect more beautiful images of the famous space telescope.

The NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory, which also had a gyro problem

Shadows in Space

About Hubble, the Space Telescope captured an image called shadow of a bat 1,300 light-years away in the stellar nursery known as the Serpens nebula.

So what is it? A sun-like star, HBC 672, is surrounded by a large ring of dusty debris. But Hubble can not see this ring. Instead, it captures the shadow of the ring created by the bright light of the star. NASA scientists have compared the big shadow to what happens when something small crosses in front of a flashlight beam.

"It is an badogue of what the solar system looked like when it was only 1 or 2 million years ago," said Klaus Pontoppidan. , astronomer at the Institute of Space Telescope Sciences. "All we know, the solar system has already created a shadow like this."

Do not get too close

If you were in space, the last thing you would want getting close to you is a black. hole, the frighteningly destructive and insatiable garbage disposal of the universe. When you are close to it, you have really pbaded the point of no return.

Many astronomers badume that a supermbadive black hole is at the center of the Milky Way, our galaxy. This is because they also tend to hide in the center of other galaxies.

But for the first time, we saw materials spin around the drain, so to speak. The GRAVITY instrument of the European Australian Observatory has observed light eruptions around the disk belonging to Sagittarius A, a gigantic object located in the galactic center.

light, "said Oliver Pfuhl, scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics.

The same goes for a trippy image.

A Milky Way of Stars [19659003] Have you ever wondered why stars in our galaxy? It turns out that the halo of the Milky Way was gifted – somehow.

Galaxies are not really friendly neighbors in the universe. Instead, they tend to fuse or cannibalize.The Milky Way is one of the largest galaxies and astronomers are trying to determine whether it has grown up after many small mergers or just a few big ones. of these fusions can be found using "galactic fossils" or simply following an unusual stream of stars.

New data from the Gaia satellite mission, released this week, revealed that there are is 10 billion years old, the Milky Way fused with another great galaxy, Gaia-Enceladus. The stars of this galaxy constitute the essence of the Milky Way halo and helped shape its thick disc.

Fusion stars are distinguished from the "native stars" of our galaxy because they are younger, the researchers said.

And in about 4 million years, the Milky Way will collide with the gigantic galaxy Andromeda.

Hey, Bennu!

After two years of trekking in space for a date with an asteroid, NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe sends images of the primitive asteroid Bennu.

Spaceship and asteroid will have their official appointment in December. We will then have photos with color filters. I can not wait to see the Instagram of this date.