Milton Keynes UK (JPL) May 13, 2022
We drove just over 30 metres in the last plan, reaching today's location. If you look closely at the last blog's image you can locate the block in front of us today in the distance of that image. But it's tricky if you are not used to looking at landscapes in different perspectives. The almost rectangular block in the upper middle of today's navigation camera image can be seen in the upper

Tucson AZ (SPX) May 16, 2022
After mobilizing more than 300 scientists and engineers to establish a network of synchronized telescopes that form an Earth-sized virtual telescope, the international Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration snapped the first-ever images of supermassive black holes. The first image, of the black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, was released in 2019. The latest image, released Thu

Tucson AZ (SPX) May 16, 2022
Discovering something for the second time doesn't usually have scientists jump out of their seats with excitement. But that's exactly what happened in the case of Sgr A* (pronounced "sadge-ay-star"), the second black hole imaged. In 2019, the image of M87*, a supermassive black hole in a galaxy more than 50 million light-years from Earth, graced the cover pages of virtually every news outl

Erlangen, Germany (SPX) May 13, 2022
When stars like our Sun use up all their fuel, they shrink to form white dwarfs. Sometimes such dead stars flare back to life in a super hot explosion and produce a fireball of X-ray radiation. A research team led by FAU has now been able to observe such an explosion of X-ray light for the very first time. "It was to some extent a fortunate coincidence

Huntsville AL (SPX) May 13, 2022
Since 2003, the black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster has been associated with sound. This is because astronomers discovered that pressure waves sent out by the black hole caused ripples in the cluster's hot gas that could be translated into a note - one that humans cannot hear some 57 octaves below middle C. Now a new sonification brings more notes to this black hole sound mach

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 13, 2022
After a successful 47m drive with ~5 m of elevation gain by Curiosity yestersol, we arrived at more new and interesting terrain to investigate! I was on shift as Science Operations Coordinator (SOC), and my role is to keep the pulse on both the science priorities and the rover resources and constraints. It involves a lot of interdisciplinary communication between both the international science t

Tempe AZ (The Conversation) May 13, 2022
Satellites help run the internet and television and are central to the Global Positioning System. They enable modern weather forecasting, help scientists track environmental degradation and play a huge role in modern military technology. Nations that don't have their own satellites providing these services rely on other countries. For those that want to develop their own satellite infrastr

Washington DC (UPI) May 13, 2022
The United States and Britain entered into a commercial spaceflight partnership agreement Thursday with the aim to launch cheaper, quicker and more streamlined spaceflight operations. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his British counterpart, Grant Shapps, signed the agreement at Maryland's Smithsonian Institution, London's Department for Transport said in a statement Friday.

New Delhi (IANS) May 13, 2022
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday went a step ahead in its human space mission programme 'Gaganyaan' by successfully completing the static test firing of the solid fuel powered rocket booster engine. "ISRO successfully completed the static test of a human-rated solid rocket booster (HS200) for the Gaganyaan Programme at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota,