European food has always been out of this world, but this week ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer shared a taste of his home region, Saarland – with a serving of science – during a space-based Saint Nicholas feast.

Image: Blood disc for astronaut diagnosis

Amsterdam, Netherlands (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
Astronomers have a model of how galaxy cluster collisions go through different stages, taking on various shapes. A blunt body shape turns into a sharp cone, which turns into a tongue-like shape. The first and last have been observed many times, but the sharp cone was always missing. Until now. Publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Most galaxies live in clusters: groups of hundreds or

Canberra, Australia (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
An international team of astronomers from Australia, the United States and Europe has for the first-time unlocked the interior structure of Beta Crucis - a bright blue giant star that features on the flags of Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. With an entirely new approach, the team led by Dr Daniel Cotton, found the star to be 14.5 times as massive as the Sun and

Baltimore MD (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
Very distant, active supermassive black holes are the brightest beacons in the universe. Known as quasars, these behemoths are surrounded by equally distant galaxies. In recent decades, researchers have gone on a cosmic treasure hunt and identified the three most distant quasars known over the last three years - each more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers theorize that it can t

Kashiwa, Japan (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
A team of theoretical researchers have found it might be possible to detect Q-balls in gravitational waves, and their detection would answer why more matter than anti-matter to be left over after the Big Bang, reports a new study in Physical Review Letters. The reason humans exist is because at some time in the first second of the Universe's existence, somehow more matter was produced than

Munich, Germany (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some astronomers believed planets could not exist a

Orlando FL (UPI) Dec 09, 2021
NASA intends to learn more about stars, neutron stars, black holes, nebulae and other space objects by launching a new X-ray telescope satellite, the IXPE, from Florida early Thursday. The $214 million IXPE satellite, or X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, will orbit the Earth as the first satellite dedicated to measuring the polarization of X-rays from a variety of cosmic sources, according to NA

Orlando FL (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
As the new space race continues, a team of top researchers says one thing needs to be cleared up - what exactly is a planet? In a study appearing recently in the journal Icarus, the researchers hope to set the record straight with a look at how a planet's definition has changed since the time of Galileo to the controversial decision the International Astronomical Union made in 2006 to crea

Orlando FL (UPI) Dec 09, 2021
Russia's only active female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, will make her first trip into space in fall 2022 as the first Russian to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, Russia's space agency announced Wednesday on Twitter. Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Russia's Roscosmos agency, said his program has pledged a seat of a Russian Soyuz capsule to an American astronaut in return. Rogozin