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Saturn makes closest approach to Earth. What to know for Saturn season

Saturn makes closest approach to Earth. What to know for Saturn season

Saturn will soon make its closest approach to the Earth for the year. This event will happen on Oct. 4 when Saturn will be 784 million miles away.
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James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Star-Forming Pillar in Carina Nebula

James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Star-Forming Pillar in Carina Nebula

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a detailed image of a prominent dust pillar within the Carina Nebula, a vast region of star formation in our Milky Way galaxy. This towering formation of interstellar gas and dust is being sculpted by the intense radiation and stellar winds emanating from nearby massive stars, including the luminous Eta Carinae system. Within this pillar, a compact cluster of approximately 70 young stars has been identified. The most massive among these stars are about 19 times the mass of our Sun. These young stars are estimated to be only 1.3 million years old, a relatively short period in cosmic terms, highlighting the dynamic and rapid processes of star birth occurring in this region.
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Astronomers Discover Youngest Exoplanet Elias 2-24b, Challenging Planet Formation Models

Astronomers Discover Youngest Exoplanet Elias 2-24b, Challenging Planet Formation Models

Astronomers have identified Elias 2-24b, the youngest exoplanet ever discovered, orbiting a young orange dwarf star approximately 453 light-years from Earth. This Jupiter-sized 'newborn' planet is estimated to be less than a million years old and is still embedded within its natal disk of gas and dust. The discovery was made by a team led by Andrea Bernardi, a doctoral candidate at the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile, who analyzed archival data from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The findings confirm earlier observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, which hinted at a celestial body within a gap in the debris disk around the star Elias 2-24. Coronagraph technology, which blocks starlight to enable direct observation of orbiting planets, was crucial in confirming the exoplanet's presence within this gap, where planets are expected to form by carving out material.
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NASA's LRO Discovers 'Once-in-a-Century' Moon Crater, Reveals Surface Changes

NASA's LRO Discovers 'Once-in-a-Century' Moon Crater, Reveals Surface Changes

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has identified the largest newly formed crater ever found in the solar system on the Moon’s eastern edge. Named McGetchin crater after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, it formed between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when a comet or asteroid, estimated to be the size of a three- to six-story building, impacted the lunar surface. The crater measures 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep. Robert Wagner, an image-processing specialist with Intuitive Machines working with LROC data, discovered the crater during a routine data-quality check by comparing before and after images of the Moon. Scientists estimate that an impact of this magnitude occurs on the Moon approximately once a century or even less frequently. Further observations using LRO’s thermal instrument, Diviner, revealed a 4-mile-wide area around the crater that is about 16 degrees Fahrenheit cooler at night than its surroundings. This cooling effect is attributed to the impact fluffing up the regolith, makin...
USA TodayUSA Today
Starship is due to fly again from Texas as SpaceX eyes major milestone

Starship is due to fly again from Texas as SpaceX eyes major milestone

The primary objective of SpaceX's next Starship flight is for the world's largest rocket to reach orbit for the first time in three years of tests.
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Hubble Space Telescope Discovers New Decagon Wave Pattern in Saturn's Southern Atmosphere

Hubble Space Telescope Discovers New Decagon Wave Pattern in Saturn's Southern Atmosphere

Astronomers utilizing images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have identified a previously unobserved 10-sided wave pattern, or decagon, in Saturn's southern atmosphere. This discovery, detailed in a recent study published in Science Advances, was made through data collected as part of Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, which annually images outer planets to study their atmospheric compositions and evolution. The research also incorporated observations from ground-based telescopes, including the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain. Unlike Saturn's well-known northern hexagonal atmospheric structure, which remains largely fixed, the newly found southern decagon exhibits an eastward migration and oscillates every 32 days, suggesting it behaves more like a meandering wave across multiple atmospheric layers. This feature was not observed by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its mission from 2004 to 2017, indicating it is a recent development.
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James Webb Space Telescope Captures Colossal Cosmic Cloud in IC 348, Aids Brown Dwarf Search

James Webb Space Telescope Captures Colossal Cosmic Cloud in IC 348, Aids Brown Dwarf Search

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a new image revealing an expansive cosmic cloud within the star-forming region IC 348, located approximately 1,000 light-years away. This image showcases glowing wisps of translucent gas and dust, where cold molecular hydrogen gas collapses to form new stars. The cosmic landscape is dotted with numerous twinkling stars. This observation is part of a scientific program aimed at identifying and studying brown dwarfs, which are celestial objects that form like stars but lack sufficient mass to initiate hydrogen fusion in their cores. Brown dwarfs are less massive than the smallest stars but more massive than the largest planets, making them a subject of ongoing scientific inquiry.
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Hubble Telescope Discovers First Extragalactic Globular Cluster Stellar Stream, Aids Dark Matter Mapping

Hubble Telescope Discovers First Extragalactic Globular Cluster Stellar Stream, Aids Dark Matter Mapping

The Hubble Space Telescope has provided the strongest evidence to date for a globular cluster stellar stream located beyond the Milky Way galaxy. This discovery involves a narrow ribbon of stars observed next to the ultra-diffuse galaxy UGC 9050-Dw1, situated approximately 115 million light-years away. Researchers, led by Julie Kiel Holm, described this feature, named Oyashio, in a peer-reviewed Nature paper. The stream appears to originate from a compact object, likely a globular cluster being torn apart by the host galaxy's tidal forces. The observation was independently confirmed using images from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. This finding is significant because streams created by disrupted globular clusters are much narrower than those from dwarf galaxies, providing a unique 'test particle' to study the gravitational fields of distant galaxies.
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James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Mysterious Changes in Chariklo's Rings

James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Mysterious Changes in Chariklo's Rings

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) indicate mysterious changes in the rings surrounding Chariklo, a 'centaur' object located between Saturn and Uranus. Chariklo, approximately 400 miles in diameter, is a unique celestial body exhibiting characteristics of both asteroids and comets. Its rings were first discovered in 2013, marking it as the first small solar system body known to possess such a feature. Subsequent ground-based observations were made in 2014 and 2017. However, a JWST study published on September 9 in the journal Science Advances, based on 2022 observations, revealed significant differences over the past decade. Specifically, the inner ring of Chariklo shows a significantly higher opacity, while the outer ring exhibits lower opacity, a finding that challenges previous understandings of these ring systems.
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New Study Suggests Mercury Shrank Significantly More Than Previously Estimated

New Study Suggests Mercury Shrank Significantly More Than Previously Estimated

A new study indicates that Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system, may have shrunk by as much as 7.2 miles (11.6 kilometers) in radius, which is up to 30% more than previous estimates. Scientists, led by Dr. Gaku Nishiyama of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), suggest that Mercury's heavily cratered surface has concealed a substantial portion of the faults created as the planet cooled and contracted over billions of years. The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, found that tectonic structures, which are indicators of planetary contraction, were preferentially identified in smoother terrains, while rougher, heavily cratered regions contained fewer detectable structures. This suggests that older structures might have been hidden under impact material or become difficult to discern against the rough topography, leading to an underestimation of the planet's overall shrinkage.
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New Research Indicates Mercury Has Shrunk More Than Previously Estimated

New Research Indicates Mercury Has Shrunk More Than Previously Estimated

Recent studies, utilizing improved maps and data from the MESSENGER mission, suggest that the planet Mercury has contracted significantly more than earlier estimates. The new data indicates a shrinkage of up to 14.5 miles in diameter, which is 10 to 30 percent greater than previous figures ranging from 2.5 to 10 miles. This contraction is primarily attributed to the ongoing cooling of Mercury's interior, specifically its iron core. As the core cools, the entire planet uniformly contracts, causing the outer rocky layers to buckle, crumple, and crack, forming tectonic features like scarps and ridges across its surface. The previous underestimation of shrinkage was partly due to Mercury's rough terrain, where impact debris obscured some of these contraction features. Lead author Gaku Nishiyama, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Space Research, and his team compared global maps of Mercury’s surface roughness with maps of its contraction structures to arrive at these update...
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NASA's Roman Space Telescope Exceeds Fuel Projections, Doubling Potential Mission Lifetime

NASA's Roman Space Telescope Exceeds Fuel Projections, Doubling Potential Mission Lifetime

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is projected to have its operational lifetime more than doubled, from an initial 10 years to at least 22 years, due to significant fuel savings. This extended lifespan is attributed to several factors: the exceptional accuracy of its first mid-course correction maneuver, which used less than 10% of the budgeted fuel; additional fuel loaded prior to launch because the spacecraft was lighter than initially projected; and anticipated further savings from its upcoming second mid-course correction and orbital insertion. The first burn, executed on August 31, was over 99% accurate and consumed only about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of fuel, far less than the 441 pounds (200 kilograms) allocated. The spacecraft's actual launch weight of 17,760 pounds (8,056 kilograms) was significantly below the conservative maximum weight of 21,605 pounds (9,800 kilograms) used for fuel budgeting, allowing for propellant tanks to be filled beyond the 10-year requirement. These efficiencies m...