The James Webb telescope has focused its attention on an oddball space rock lurking between Jupiter and Neptune. The unusual “centaur,” named 2060 Chiron, has features of both comets and asteroids.
Category: space – Page 193
Watch the R Aquarii binary star system evolve in Hubble imagery time-lapse
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured imagery of the R Aquarii binary star system from 2014–2023. The images have been time-lapsed here to show the evolution of the region.
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Stute, M. Karovska, D. de Martin \& M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble) | edited by Space.com.
Music: You Want Dark Tunes? by Ave Air / courtesy of http://www.epidemicsound.com
AI ‘artist’ pulls in millions — and may ‘create more interesting work than humans,’ co-creator says
Domo arigato, Mr. Botto.
The next artistic masterpiece may be more machine than man: An artificial intelligence design program called Botto has sold computerized works for megabucks and could revolutionize the creative space.
Since its creation in 2021, Botto has created more than 150 works of various disciplines that have cumulatively raked in over $5 million at auction, CNBC reported.
Robots In Space: Hayabusa2 at Ryugu asteroid
Journey into one of humanity’s most ambitious space missions as we explore JAXA’s groundbreaking Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid Ryugu! Discover how this remarkable spacecraft not only achieved the first successful deployment of rovers on an asteroid but also brought back precious samples that could reveal secrets about our solar system’s formation. From the dramatic touchdown on Ryugu’s surface to the revolutionary MASCOT and MINERVA rovers that hopped across its microgravity environment, this video breaks down the incredible technology and scientific discoveries from this historic asteroid sample return mission. Learn how these primitive asteroid samples are reshaping our understanding of the early solar system and what this means for future space exploration.
A NASA Spacecraft Will ‘Touch’ the Sun on Christmas Eve, Flying Closer to the Star Than Any Probe Before
Merry Christmas Holidays Everyone!
The holiday season is a busy time for humankind’s sun-surfing spacecraft. This Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe will be going where no probe has gone before: a mere 3.8 million miles from the sun’s surface.
Around 6:53 a.m. Eastern time on December 24, it will pass the closest that any spacecraft has ever been to our roaring sun. And it will do so in another record-breaking fashion: traveling 430,000 miles per hour—the speed equivalent of traversing from Washington, D.C., to Tokyo in under a minute—making it the fastest human-made object to ever zip across the universe.
“It’ll be inside the upper atmosphere of the sun, literally touching the star,” Nicki Rayl, NASA’s deputy director of heliophysics, tells Julia Jacobo and Mary Kekatos of ABC News.
NASA spacecraft just plunged into the sun and broke stunning records
To make this record-breaking pass, the nearly 10-foot-long probe has made 22 orbits around the sun, allowing it to swoop ever deeper into the corona. And while doing so, the spacecraft has been continually picking up speed. When you repeatedly swing by such a massive and gravitationally powerful object — the sun is a sphere of hot gas 333,000 times as massive as our planet — you accrue lots of speed. Out in space, there’s nothing to stop this motion.
On this close flyby, the probe reached some 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour).
“That’s like going from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in one second,” marveled Raouafi. “It’s fascinating. It’s the fastest human-made object ever.”
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Attempts a Record-Breaking Christmas Eve Flyby
The Parker Solar Probe will swoop just 6.1 million kilometers above the sun’s surface on Christmas Eve. Scientists are thrilled at what we might learn.
By Jonathan O’Callaghan edited by Lee Billings
There are some places in the solar system no human will ever go. The surface of Venus, with its thick atmosphere and crushing pressure, is all but inaccessible. The outer worlds, such as Pluto, are too remote to presently consider for anything but robotic exploration. And the sun, our bright burning ball of hydrogen and helium, is far too hot and tumultuous for astronauts to closely approach. In our place, one intrepid robotic explorer, the Parker Solar Probe, has been performing a series of dramatic swoops toward our star, reaching closer than any spacecraft before to unlock its secrets. Now it is about to perform its final, closest passes, skimming inside the solar atmosphere like never before.
Scientists reinvent equations governing formation of snowflakes, raindrops and Saturn’s rings
Skoltech researchers have proposed novel mathematical equations that describe the behavior of aggregating particles in fluids. This bears on natural and engineering processes as diverse as rain and snow formation, the emergence of planetary rings, and the flow of fluids and powders in pipes.
Reported in Physical Review Letters, the new equations eliminate the need for juggling two sets of equations that had to be used in conjunction, which led to unacceptable errors for some applications.
Fluid aggregation is involved in many processes. In the atmosphere, water droplets agglomerate into rain, and ice microcrystals into snow. In space, particles orbiting giant planets come together to form rings like those of Saturn.