Copernical Team
NASA looks back at 50 years of gamma-ray burst science
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Fifty years ago, on June 1, 1973, astronomers around the world were introduced to a powerful and perplexing new phenomenon called GRBs (gamma-ray bursts). Today sensors on orbiting satellites like NASA's Swift and Fermi missions detect a GRB somewhere in the sky about once a day on average. Astronomers think the bursts arise from catastrophic occurrences involving stars in distant galaxies, even Eventually everything will evaporate, not only black holes
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New theoretical research by Michael Wondrak, Walter van Suijlekom and Heino Falcke of Radboud University has shown that Stephen Hawking was right about black holes, although not completely.
Due to Hawking radiation, black holes will eventually evaporate, but the event horizon is not as crucial as had been believed. Gravity and the curvature of spacetime cause this radiation too. This means Astrophysicists confirm the faintest galaxy ever seen in the early universe
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An international research team led by UCLA astrophysicists has confirmed the existence of the faintest galaxy ever seen in the early universe. The galaxy, called JD1, is one of the most distant identified to date, and it is typical of the kinds of galaxies that burned through the fog of hydrogen atoms left over from the Big Bang, letting light shine through the universe and shaping it into what Colorful Kuiper Belt puzzle solved by UH researchers
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The Kuiper Belt is a massive disk of icy bodies, including Pluto, that is located just outside of Neptune's orbit in our solar system. Objects observed in the Kuiper Belt exhibit a unique color range than any other solar system population ranging from white to dark reddish. While the source of this diversity in colors is unknown, scientists have speculated that it is likely the result of the pro 20 years and counting: Mars Express in numbers
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20 years and counting: Mars Express in numbers Webb peers behind bars
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A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The bright tendrils of gas and stars belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, whose bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
This portrait of NGC 5068 is part of a campaign to create an astronomical treasure trove, a repository of observations of star formation in nearby galaxies. Previous gems from this collection can be seen here and here. These observations are particularly
20 years of Mars Express: Mars as never seen before
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A new mosaic of Mars marks 20 years since the launch of ESA's Mars Express, and reveals the planet’s colour and composition in spectacular detail.
Mars Express milestones: two-year mission enters third decade
Boeing's first crewed space launch delayed, again
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Boeing has once again delayed the first crewed flight of its Starliner space capsule after discovering new technical issues, officials said Thursday.
The troubled CST-100 Starliner program has experienced numerous postponements but was finally meant to send humans on a test flight to the International Space Station on July 21.
During testing, Boeing engineers identified new issues relati NASA's Mars helicopter went silent for six agonizing days
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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has exceeded everyone's expectations, recently completing its 51st flight when it was supposed to fly just a few times as a demonstration mission. But flights 50 and 51 almost didn't happen.
In a recent blog post, Travis Brown, Chief Engineer for Ingenuity shared how the team lost contact with the tiny rotorcraft for six excruciating days.
At first, they were not overly concerned when communications ceased from the helicopter on Sol 755. About a year ago, a brief two-day communication glitch occurred because Ingenuity experienced insufficient battery charge as night fell at the start of the Martian winter. This reduced voltage reset the mission clock, causing the helicopter's system to be out of sync with Perseverance rover. While the team quickly figured out the issue, because of Ingenuity's off-the shelf batteries, they expected this issue could happen again.
But now, this time was different.
