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There was enough going on the Earth to keep us busy this week, but do not forget to watch from time to time. Here's all you missed galactic during Halloween and early voting.
NASA happenings
Two NASA historical missions ran out of fuel this week: the 11-year-old Dawn mission aimed at exploring the two largest objects in the asteroid belt and the mission nine-year-old 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 the dwarf planet Ceres for decades and Kepler is 94 million kilometers away.
Farewell, brave travelers, and thanks for all science.
But let's invite Parker's solar probe to record a record and get closer to the sun than any other spacecraft.
Hubble woke up; 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 are hoping that stronger winds will bring down the dust from Oppy's solar panels.
Meanwhile, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope resumed operations and made further observations.
A gyroscope or a device measuring the speed at which the spacecraft spins broke down. This meant that Hubble could not turn and lock on new targets. A backup gyroscope proved useless, even if it worked badly.
After the backup has been restored, expect some great images of the famous space telescope.
NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory, which also had a gyroscope problem recently, is also operational again.
Shadows in Space
About Hubble, the space telescope captured an image called a bat's shadow at 1,300 light-years away from 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's an badogue of what the solar system looked like when it was only 1 or 2 million years ago," says 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. Once 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, materials were seen surrounding the drain, so to speak. The GRAVITY instrument of the European European Observatory has observed light eruptions around the Sagittarius A disc, the mbadive object in the center of the galaxy.
"It's amazing to see a material gravitating around a huge black hole at 30% of the speed of light," said Oliver Pfuhl, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.
It also gives a thrilling image.
A milky way of the stars
Have you ever wondered why there were so many stars in our galaxy? It turns out that the halo of the Milky Way was gifted – somehow.
Galaxies are not exactly friendly neighbors in the universe. Instead, they tend to merge or cannibalize. The Milky Way is one of the largest galaxies and astronomers are trying to determine if it grew up after many small mergers or just a few big ones. Sometimes evidence of these fusions can be found using "galactic fossils" or simply following an unusual flow of stars.
The new data from the Gaia satellite mission, published this week, revealed that 10 billion years ago, the Milky Way had merged with another large galaxy, Gaia-Enceladus. The stars of this galaxy make up most of the halo of the Milky Way and have helped shape its thick disc.
The stars given by the fusion are distinguished from the "indigenous stars" of our galaxy, because they are younger, said the researchers.
And in about 4 million years, the Milky Way will collide with the gigantic galaxy Andromeda. So there is that to wait.
Hey, Bennu!
After two years of walking in space looking for an appointment with an asteroid, NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe sends images of the primitive asteroid Bennu.
in December. We will then have photos with color filters. I can not wait to see the instagram of this date.
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