XMM-Newton sees light echo from behind a black hole
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 14:00
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For the first time, astronomers have seen light coming from behind a black hole.
Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes, an international team of scientists led by Dan Wilkins of Stanford University in the USA observed extremely bright flares of X-ray light coming from around a black hole.
The X-ray flares echoed off of the gas falling into the black hole, and as the flares were subsiding, the telescopes picked up fainter flashes, which were the echoes of the flares bouncing off the gas behind the black hole.
This supermassive black hole is 10 million times as massive as our
Op-ed | Peace in the Era of Weaponized Space
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 13:47
We are on the verge of a new era in space security: the age of diverse and highly capable dual-use space systems that can serve both peaceful and anti-satellite (ASAT) purposes. These new systems, such as spacecraft capable of undertaking rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs), ground-based lasers capable of interacting with space objects, and actions in cyberspace, cannot feasibly be banned; nor should they be, as they promise immense civil and commercial benefits.
Will AI leave human astronomers in the stardust?
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 13:21
Machine learning is coming for astronomy. But that doesn't mean astronomers and citizen scientists are obsolete. In fact, it may mean exactly the opposite.
When you think of a galaxy, the first thing that comes to mind is a spiral. There's a dense cluster of stars in the core and some big, sweeping spiral arms out to the side.
But that's not the only kind of galaxy out there. Like people, galaxies come in all shapes and sizes. There's disk shaped ones and spherical ones, neat barred spirals and messy irregulars.
Galaxies, sorted
That shape isn't just important for your sense of aesthetics when you're picking a desktop wallpaper. It also tells us a whole lot about the universe, according to Mitchell Cavanagh, Ph.D. candidate at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
"We call ellipticals early types because they're more prominent as you go out to higher redshifts in the earlier universe. Then your spirals, we tend to call late type because they're more common when we look at the more-recent universe at lower redshift galaxies close to us," Mitchell says.
Rocket tanks of carbon-fiber–reinforced plastic are proven possible
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 12:30
Future rockets could fly with tanks made of lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastic thanks to ground-breaking research carried out within ESA's Future Launchers Preparatory Program.
Building on earlier studies, MT Aerospace in Germany has demonstrated a novel design of a small scale tank made of a unique carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) that is not only leak-proof with liquid hydrogen, but also compatible with liquid oxygen, without the use of a metal liner.
First test of Europe's new space brain
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 12:30
ESA has successfully operated a spacecraft with Europe's next-generation mission control system for the first time. The powerful software, named the "European Ground System—Common Core' (EGS-CC), will be the 'brain' of all European spaceflight operations in the years to come, and promises new possibilities for how future missions will fly.
Rocket tanks of carbon fibre reinforced plastic proven possible
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 11:00
Future rockets could fly with tanks made of lightweight carbon fibre reinforced plastic thanks to ground-breaking research carried out within ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme.
Watch the launch of Eutelsat Quantum
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 09:43
Follow the launch on 30 July of a sophisticated telecommunications satellite capable of being completely repurposed while in space.
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Space suspense Space Tourism, Space Entrepreneurs and the Business and Economics of Space
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Recent developments related to Space are simply astonishing. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, went to space just a few days ago on July 20, 2021 on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. Blue Origin is a space tourism company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000. In addition to the brother of Jeff Bezos (Mark Bezos), the two other passengers in the trip were Wally Funk (82), who became the oldest person to go Red bodies similar to Kuiper objects found in main asteroid belt
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Two asteroids (203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia) have been discovered with a redder spectrum than any other object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The discovery was led by HASEGAWA Sunao, Associate Senior Researcher at ISAS JAXA, with an international team of researchers from MIT, the University of Hawai'i, Seoul National University, Kyoto University and the Laboratoire d'Astrophysiqu Aerial Scouting of 'Raised Ridges' for Ingenuity's Flight 10
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Ingenuity has come a long way from its original airfield, "Wright Brothers Field," which is 0.64 miles (1.04 kilometers) to the northeast of our current location. We got here during Flight 9, an endeavor that had our helicopter breaking several of our own records as we relocated to the far side of the "Seitah" geologic unit. Covering 2,051 feet (625 meters), Flight 9 was executed so that Ingenui Western leads global project observing rare meteor showers and meteorite falls
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
As billionaires battle it out in a space race that only a handful of the world's richest persons can play, a highly inclusive international project is looking in the other direction - what's flying towards Earth - and all are welcome.
Led by Western University's Denis Vida, the Global Meteor Network (GMN) is a collection of more than 450 video meteor cameras hosted by amateur astronomers a Magnetic 'balding' of black holes saves general relativity prediction
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Magnetic fields around black holes decay quickly, report researchers from the Flatiron Institute, Columbia University and Princeton University. This finding backs up the so-called 'no-hair conjecture' predicted by Einstein's general relativity.
Black holes aren't what they eat. Einstein's general relativity predicts that no matter what a black hole consumes, its external properties depend On the hunt for 'hierarchical' black holes
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Black holes, detected by their gravitational wave signal as they collide with other black holes, could be the product of much earlier parent collisions.
Such an event has only been hinted at so far, but scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK, and Northwestern University in the US, believe we are getting close to tracking down the first of these so-called 'hierarchical' black Astronomers show how planets form in binary systems without getting crushed
Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Astronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics, have shown how exoplanets in binary star systems - such as the 'Tatooine' planets spotted by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope - came into being without being destroyed in their chao