Austin TX (SPX) Sep 04, 2023
A planet about 950 light years from Earth could be the Looney Tunes' Yosemite Sam equivalent of planets, blowing its atmospheric 'top' in spectacular fashion. The planet called HAT-P-32b is losing so much of its atmospheric helium that the trailing gas tails are among the largest structures yet known of an exoplanet, a planet outside our solar system, according to observations by astronome

Bristol UK (SPX) Sep 04, 2023
A Neptune-sized planet denser than steel has been discovered by an international team of astronomers, who believe its composition could be the result of a giant planetary clash. TOI-1853b's mass is almost twice that of any other similar-sized planet known and its density is incredibly high, meaning that it is made up of a larger fraction of rock than would typically be expected at that sca

Albuquerque NM (SPX) Sep 04, 2023
Scientists from The University of New Mexico (UNM), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have detected and validated two of the longest-period exoplanets found by TESS to date. These long period large exoplanets orbit a K dwarf star and belong to a class of planets known as warm Jupiters, which have orbital periods of 10-200 days and are at least six times Earth's radius. This recent

Shanghai, China (SPX) Sep 04, 2023
An international scientific team has revealed for the first time the magnetic field transport processes in the accretion flow of a black hole and the formation of a "MAD"-a magnetically arrested disk-in the vicinity of a black hole. The researchers made the discovery while conducting multi-wavelength observational studies of an outburst event of the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070, using

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 30, 2023
Earth planning date: Wednesday, August 30, 2023: Earth to Mars? Due to a communications issue, Curiosity didn't receive its instructions on time on Monday, leading to Curiosity taking an extended weekend break - just like its British colleagues! Today, we're back on track with planning with a lot of discussions about the degree to which we should copy and paste the original plan intended f

Lampoldshausen, Germany (SPX) Sep 04, 2023
On September 1 2023, teams from ArianeGroup, the German Aerospace Center and the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully completed another hot-fire test on the test bench dedicated to the upper stage of the new Ariane 6 launcher, in Lampoldshausen (Germany). The upper stage test sequence was representative of its operating phase during Ariane 6's inaugural flight. It involved more than 11

Beijing (XNA) Sep 04, 2023
Upon a search for "space-bred seeds" on China's e-commerce giant JD.com, a stunning array of vegetables and fruits appears, each with remarkably positive user reviews. "My kid likes it a lot and finds it interesting to observe the growth of these special plants," a customer review stated. Over the decades, the plant seeds brought back from space have transcended their role in laborat

Beijing (XNA) Sep 04, 2023
China has published artist's renderings of the country's lunar landing module and its next-generation crew spacecraft, both of which will be central to the nation's grand goal of sending astronauts to the moon. According to the renderings and their descriptions published by the China Manned Space Agency on Thursday, the lunar landing module will have two parts - a landing section and a pro

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 04, 2023
NASA's LRO - the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - spacecraft imaged a new crater on the Moon's surface that is likely the impact site of Russia's Luna 25 mission. During its descent, Luna 25 experienced an anomaly that caused it to impact the surface of the Moon on Aug. 19. Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, published an estimate of the impact point on Aug. 21. The LROC (short for LRO Camera)