Space

Small Satellites yield Big Discoveries 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 6, 2019
NASA uses CubeSats for new science missions and to test new electronics, sensors and software that might be included on larger missions.

By David Aragorn
Retreating snow line reveals organic molecules around young star 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 6, 2019
Astronomers using ALMA have detected various complex organic molecules around the young star V883 Ori. A sudden outburst from this star is releasing molecules from the icy compounds in the planet forming disk. The chemical composition of the disk is similar to that of comets in the modern Solar System. Sensitive ALMA observations enable astronomers to reconstruct the evolution of organic molecules from the birth of the Solar System to the objects we see today.

By David Aragorn
Milky Way is warped and twisted, not flat 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 6, 2019
Scientists in Australia and China create 3D map revealing the true shape of the galaxy

By David Aragorn
A space rock collision may explain how this exoplanet was born 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 5, 2019
Convincing evidence for such collisions outside the solar system is rare

By David Aragorn
Ancient asteroid impacts played a role in creation of Earth’s future continents 0
- Ancient Archeology, From Around the Web, Space
- February 4, 2019
The heavy bombardment of terrestrial planets by asteroids from space has contributed to the formation of the early evolved crust on Earth that later gave rise to continents — home to human civilisation.

By David Aragorn
Titan’s oddly thick atmosphere may come from cooked organic compounds 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 2, 2019
Saturn’s moon is one of the best places to look for life in the solar system

By David Aragorn
Hubble fortuitously discovers a new galaxy in the cosmic neighborhood 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 2, 2019
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study some of the oldest and faintest stars in the globular cluster NGC 6752 have made an unexpected finding. They discovered a dwarf galaxy in our cosmic backyard, only 30 million light-years away. The finding is reported in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

By David Aragorn
NASA’s NICER Mission Maps ‘Light Echoes’ of New Black Hole 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 2, 2019
Scientists have charted the environment surrounding a stellar-mass black hole that is 10 times the mass of the Sun using NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) payload aboard the International Space Station.

By David Aragorn
Space changes your brain in bigger ways than we thought 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 1, 2019
We are already aware of many of the dangers that spaceflight can inflict on the human body.

By David Aragorn
Missing-link in planet evolution found 0
- From Around the Web, Space
- February 1, 2019
For the first time ever, astronomers have detected a 1.3 km radius body at the edge of the Solar System. Kilometer sized bodies like the one discovered have been predicted to exist for more than 70 years. These objects acted as an important step in the planet formation process between small initial amalgamations of dust and ice and the planets we see today.

By David Aragorn