A new Keck Observatory study indicates that giant planets can spin faster than more massive brown dwarfs, revealing important clues about how planetary systems form and evolve. Astronomers have long suspected that a planetβs mass may be linked to how quickly it spins. In our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn rotate especially fast, each completing [...]
NASAβs Roman Telescope could reveal 100,000 hidden worlds and rewrite what we know about planets across the Milky Way. NASAβs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to dramatically expand humanityβs catalog of worlds beyond our solar system. Known as exoplanets, these distant planets number nearly 6,300 discoveries so far through NASA missions and other [...]
A star caught feeding on its companion has finally revealed the source of some of the galaxyβs most mysterious repeating signals. An international research team led by scientists at the University of Sydney has uncovered the strongest evidence yet explaining the origin of a puzzling type of cosmic signal. Their work has also revealed a [...]
NASA's MAVEN spacecraft was in excellent shape when it disappeared behind Mars on December 6 of last year. The routine passage, called an occultation, was supposed to last less than an hour, but ground teams didn't hear from the spacecraft when it was supposed to regain contact with Earth.
The loss of communication triggered contingency plans for engineers to try to restore a link with MAVEN, which orbits Mars more than 200 million miles from Earth. To no avail, they listened for faint signals and uplinked commands in the blind. Hopes of saving the mission faded over time, and NASA officials announced Wednesday that they're giving up on it.
"NASA has ceased efforts to search for the MAVEN spacecraft and are beginning activities to decommission the mission," said Mike Moreau, MAVEN's project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.Β
NASA's MAVEN spacecraft was in excellent shape when it disappeared behind Mars on December 6 of last year. The routine passage, called an occultation, was supposed to last less than an hour, but ground teams didn't hear from the spacecraft when it was supposed to regain contact with Earth.
The loss of communication triggered contingency plans for engineers to try to restore a link with MAVEN, which orbits Mars more than 200 million miles from Earth. To no avail, they listened for faint signals and uplinked commands in the blind. Hopes of saving the mission faded over time, and NASA officials announced Wednesday that they're giving up on it.
"NASA has ceased efforts to search for the MAVEN spacecraft and are beginning activities to decommission the mission," said Mike Moreau, MAVEN's project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.Β
NASA has confirmed its MAVEN spacecraft is officially dead after losing contact with the probe in December. An anomaly in the probe's rotation speed led to an unexpected loss of power, though the exact cause remains unknown.
Muon Space announced a Starship-class satellite platform June 3 designed from the ground up to meet the demands of the emerging orbital data center market, with an initial launch slated for 2028 after securing customers.
A spectacular spiral galaxy known as M88 is traveling toward the crowded heart of the Virgo Cluster, where powerful forces are already beginning to reshape its future. A striking new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope highlights Messier 88 (M88), a spiral galaxy that is in the midst of a cosmic journey spanning hundreds [...]
Researchers discovered a closely orbiting pair of supermassive black holes in Markarian 501 by tracking two jets of particles. The binary system could merge within 100 years and may produce detectable gravitational waves. Current evidence indicates that nearly every large galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center, with a mass ranging from millions [...]
A former NASA engineer named John Muratore sat on console as launch director in early September 2016 as propellant flowed onto a Falcon 9 rocket in Florida. Ahead of a planned launch two days later, SpaceX was preparing for a static fire test of the vehicle.
Then, all of a sudden, the rocket exploded. "It came out of nowhere, and it was really violent," Muratore said. This fireball resulted in the destruction of the rocket, much of its launch site, and the AMOS-6 satellite already attached to the vehicle.
Nearly a decade later, on May 28, Blue Origin conducted a static fire test of a new rocket, with its larger New Glenn vehicle a few miles down the Florida coast. The company had gotten further into its test, reaching engine ignition, before its rocket also exploded.
NASAβs Fermi telescope may have finally uncovered the magnetic powerhouse behind the universeβs brightest supernovae. An international team of astronomers analyzing observations from NASAβs Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found what appears to be the first convincing detection of gamma rays from a rare type of extraordinarily bright stellar explosion known as a superluminous supernova. [...]