A newly discovered visitor to the outer edges of our solar system has been shown to be the largest known comet ever, thanks to the rapid response telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory. The object, which is named Comet C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its two discoverers, was first announced on Saturday, June 19th, 2021. C/2014 UN271 was found by reprocessing four years of data from the Dark Energy Survey, which was carried out using the 4-m Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile between 2013 and 2019.

Engineers have made considerable progress in checking off NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's final series of tests. Three big milestones have recently been completed, bringing the world's most complex and powerful space science telescope ever built much closer to being fully prepared for its million-mile journey to orbit. These three testing milestones are outlined below:

Deployable Tower Assembly Testing: Completed

This telescoping tower helps Webb maintain its necessary super cool operating temperatures by separating its mirrors and instruments from the comparatively warmer Sun-facing side and spacecraft bus.