Black holes are gatherers, not hunters. They lie in wait until a hapless star wanders by and then grab it and rip it apart.
Space
Christmas Launch Now for the James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope is made ready for a Christmas Dayt launch. (ESA) Baltimore, MD-(ENEWSPF)- Weather is nudging the James Webb Space Telescope from December 24 to a Christmas Day launch. NASA and Arianespace successfully completed the Launch Readiness Review for the James Webb Space Telescope on Dec. 21. The[Read More…]
There’s a Lunar Eclipse Coming May 26: Everything You Need to Know
Events for the total lunar eclipse on the morning of May 26, 2021. This version is labeled for Universal Time. Please refer to the table below for corresponding times in various time zones. Due to the Moon’s off-center path through Earth’s umbra, the northern half of its disk should look[Read More…]
How Many Habitable Planets Are Out There?
This illustration depicts Kepler-186f, the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone. Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle Mountain View, CA-(ENEWSPF)- Thanks to new research using data from the Kepler space telescope, it’s estimated that there could be as many as 300 million potentially habitable planets[Read More…]
Christmas Week: Worlds Will Align for Spectacular Heavenly Sight
A view showing how the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction will appear in a telescope pointed toward the western horizon at 6 p.m. CST, Dec. 21, 2020. The image is adapted from graphics by open-source planetarium software Stellarium. (This work, “jupsat1,” is adapted from Stellarium by Patrick Hartigan, used under GPL-2.0, and provided[Read More…]
Astronomers Discover New “Fossil Galaxy” Buried Deep Within the Milky Way
An artist’s impression of what the Milky Way might look like seen from above. The colored rings show the rough extent of the fossil galaxy known as Heracles. The yellow dot shows the position of the Sun. SDSS-(ENEWSPF)- Scientists working with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys’ Apache Point[Read More…]
Hubble Catches Possible ‘shadow Play’ of the Disk Around a Black Hole
This illustration depicts one possible explanation for the mysterious bright rays and dark shadows observed emanating from the blazingly bright center of nearby active galaxy IC 5063. In this scenario, a dusty disk surrounding the monster black hole is casting its shadow into space, which is interspersed with bright rays[Read More…]
Solar Orbiter Launch Takes Solar Science to New Heights
Launch of the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission to study the Sun from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Feb. 9, 2020. Credits: Jared Frankle Washington, D.C.-(ENEWSPF)- Solar Orbiter, a new collaborative mission between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA to study the Sun, launched at 11:03 p.m. EST[Read More…]
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Has Been Assembled for the First Time
The fully assembled James Webb Space Telescope with its sunshield and unitized pallet structures (UPSs) that fold up around the telescope for launch, are seen partially deployed to an open configuration to enable telescope installation. (Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn) By Thaddeus CesariNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Goddard Space Science Center-(ENEWSPF)-Reaching a major[Read More…]
Star-quake Vibrations lead to New Estimate for Age of Milky Way
An artist impression of the Milky Way, showing the thick and thin discs. (Credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/R.Hurt/SSC) Data gathered by NASA’s now-defunct Kepler telescope provides a solution to an astronomical mystery. Royal Astronomical Society-(ENEWSPF)- Star-quakes recorded by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have helped answer a long-standing question about the age of[Read More…]