Some experts believe we could be just a few years away from discovering the elusive “Planet Nine” – or ruling out the existence of the hypothetical world for good. But if we find it, how long will it take us to send a spacecraft to the distant world? And can humans ever make the journey? … Read more
Is humanity prepared to face an asteroid with a 72% chance of hitting Earth in 14 years? Scientists and experts say there is work to be done. When NASA presented the hypothetical scenario, drawn up by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, to a group of nearly 100 government representatives, they discovered that their plan to … Read more
Artist’s impression of a microlensing event caused by a black hole observed from Earth toward the Large Magellanic Cloud. Light from a background star located in the LMC is bent by a putative primordial black hole (lens) in the galactic halo and magnified when observed from Earth. Microlensing causes very characteristic variation in the brightness … Read more
of The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered what may be the earliest star clusters in the universe. JWST spotted the five proto-globular clusters – bundles of millions of stars bound together by gravity – within the Cosmic Gems arc, a galaxy that formed just 460 million years after Big Bang. The Cosmic Gems … Read more
Astronomers are witnessing a spectacle never before seen in the cosmos: the awakening of a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. In late 2019, a team of astronomers spotted an unusual galaxy called SDSS1335+0728, 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. A sudden bump in the galaxy’s brightness was automatically … Read more
A spacewalk by two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station ended almost as soon as it began Monday morning when water began leaking from one of the spacesuits into the airlock. “There’s water everywhere,” said Tracy Dyson, one of the astronauts, at mission control. That was minutes after she and Mike Barratt, the other … Read more
The Falcon Heavy, made up of the first three stages of the Falcon 9 rocket, can be seen in Volusia County, weather permitting and depending on cloud cover. Canaveral National Seashore is the closest place to see the liftoff because it is almost parallel to Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Godspeed, Falcon … Read more
NASA has delayed the return of two astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) for the third time, raising concerns that the crew could become ‘stuck’. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were originally scheduled for a nine-day stint, which was postponed twice this month and now sits on an unspecified date. The extended stay will … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Science of Miracles newsletter. Explore the universe with news of fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more. CNN – An extinct ribbon-shaped sea creature about the size of a human hand was one of the earliest animals to evolve a precursor to a backbone. Scientists recently identified the animal’s nerve cord using … Read more
S-BGLS periodograms of YV2 for the star HD48948 focusing on three frequency intervals (7.3, 38 and 151 d). The absolute value of log P has no meaning; instead, the relative values of logP matter. The signal observed at about 42 d in the middle panel represents the transient activity feature. Credit: Monthly Notices of the … Read more