Copernical Team
NASA's Juno mission expands into the future
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NASA has authorized a mission extension for its Juno spacecraft exploring Jupiter. The agency's most distant planetary orbiter will now continue its investigation of the solar system's largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft's end of life. This expansion tasks Juno with becoming an explorer of the full Jovian system—Jupiter and its rings and moons—with multiple rendezvous planned for three of Jupiter's most intriguing Galilean moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Io.
"Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one revelation after another about the inner workings of this massive gas giant," said principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
NASA's SDO spots first lunar transit of 2021
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On Jan. 13, 2021, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, experienced its first lunar transit of the year when the moon crossed its view of the sun. The transit lasted about 30 minutes, between 12:56 and 1:25 a.m. ET. During this time, the moon happened to cover two of the spacecraft's fine-guidance sensors, causing its view of the sun to jitter slightly. SDO recovered a steady view shortly after the transit.
SDO sees lunar transits regularly. Due to its inclined circular orbit 23,000 miles above Earth, the moon passes between SDO and the sun between two and five times each year.
SDO captured these images in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. This kind of light is invisible to human eyes, and colorized here in red.
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Mars 2020 Perseverance rover to capture sounds from the red planet
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When the Mars Perseverance rover lands on the red planet on Feb. 18, 2021, it will not only collect stunning images and rock samples; the data it returns may also include some recorded sounds from Mars.
The rover carries a pair of microphones, which—if all goes as planned—will provide interesting and historic audio of the arrival and landing at Mars, along with sounds of the rover at work and of wind and other ambient noise.
The way many things sound on Earth would be slightly different on the red planet.
Final data release from DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys issued
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Astronomers using images from Kitt Peak National Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory have created the largest ever map of the sky, comprising over a billion galaxies. The ninth and final data release from the ambitious DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys sets the stage for a ground-breaking 5-year survey with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which aims to provide new insights into the nature of dark energy. The map was released today at the January 2021 meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
For millennia humans have used maps to understand and navigate our world and put ourselves in context: we rely on maps to show us where we are, where we came from, and where we're going. Astronomical maps continue this tradition on a vast scale. They locate us within the cosmos and tell the story of the history and fate of the Universe: it will expand forever, the expansion currently accelerating because of an unknown quantity called dark energy.
Asteroids vs. microbes
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Asteroids vs. microbes Greener polyurethanes for space and beyond
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Have you heard of polyurethanes? As you read this, you’re undoubtedly close to some, or maybe sitting on them: this versatile class of chemicals is used for everything from padding your couch to insulating your windows, packaging food to carpet underlay, electronics casings to skateboard wheels. They also have vital uses in space, triggering a new ESA Clean Space project aiming to manufacture them in a greener way.
Unveiling the double origin of cosmic dust in the distant Universe
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Two billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was still very young. However, thousands of huge galaxies, rich in stars and dust, were already formed. An international study, led by SISSA - Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, now explains how this was possible.
Scientists combined observational and theoretical methods to identify the physical processes behind their evolu Chandra Studies Extraordinary Magnetar
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In 2020, astronomers added a new member to an exclusive family of exotic objects with the discovery of a magnetar. New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory help support the idea that it is also a pulsar, meaning it emits regular pulses of light.
Magnetars are a type of neutron star, an incredibly dense object mainly made up of tightly packed neutron, which forms from the coll Wind bands, jet streams spotted on nearest brown dwarf
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The brown dwarf closest to our solar system hosts wind bands and jet streams, according to new analysis of the object's atmosphere.
Brown dwarfs are too big to be planets but not quite massive enough to generate fusion, a prerequisite for stellar classification. Though hot in their infancy, brown dwarfs steadily cool as they mature, making them difficult to spot and study.
Becaus When Galaxies Collide: Hubble Showcases 6 Beautiful Galaxy Mergers
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To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of new star formation within such systems. These interactions are a key aspect of galaxy evolution and are among the most spectacular events in the lifetime of a galaxy.
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