Satellites have detected a massive solar flare powerful enough to ionize part of Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists spotted the flare erupting from the bottom of the sun on Thursday (March 28), using satellites from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), according to the organization’s Space Weather Prediction Center. The flare, which peaked at 4:56 p.m. …
Atmospheric scientists were surprised earlier this month to notice that the Arctic’s polar vortex reversed its trajectory as it began spinning in the opposite direction. What’s more: It has yet to stop. The change occurred around March 4 and is among the six strongest such events since 1979, Amy Butler, a climate scientist at the …
The Polar Vortex Above The Arctic Has Been Spinning Backwards For Weeks. Read More »
NASA’s sun-observing SOHO spacecraft has now made its 5,000th comet discovery. As of March 29, 2024, it has been 28 years, 3 months, and 27 days since SOHO launched in December, 1995! These comets are sungrazers. Sungrazing comets are those that pass extremely close to the sun at their closest point (perihelion), sometimes within a …
One of the closest quasars to our Milky Way galaxy is behaving in a surprisingly timid fashion when it comes to affecting its surroundings, new observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory have shown. A quasar is the bright central region of a galaxy that hosts a highly active supermassive black hole that is consuming large …
Most Quasars Are A Ferocious Force Of Nature, But Not This One. Read More »
When NASA builds its first space station near the moon, how will we ship items out there? Teresa Kinney, NASA‘s first female chief engineer at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), is one of the managers working to put the Gateway lunar space station together in orbit around the moon later in the 2020s. Gateway …
Last November, when NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew past its first official asteroid target named Dinkinesh, it found the space rock was not one, not two but three rocks huddled together. While scientists were surprised to spot Selam, Dinkinesh’s natural satellite, they were shocked to discover that Selam itself was, in fact, two objects melded together. …
NASA’s Lucy Asteroid-Hopping Spacecraft Pins Down Surface Ages Of 1st Asteroid Targets. Read More »
Over two million years ago, a giant asteroid slammed into Mars, scarring the surface with one massive crater and around two billion smaller individual craters. These secondary craters appear across a region of 1,000 miles (1,800 kilometers), making this asteroid event one of the biggest impacts seen on the Red Planet in relatively recent history. …
Giant Mars Asteroid Impact Creates Vast Field Of Destruction With 2 Billion Craters. Read More »
SLIM’s not dead yet. The SLIM spacecraft, Japan’s first-ever successful moon lander, has survived the long, cold lunar night for the second time. Mission team members announced the news via X on Wednesday (March 27), in a post that also featured a photo newly snapped by the lander’s navigation camera. SLIM, whose name is short …
Still Alive! Japan’s SLIM Moon Lander Survives Its 2nd Lunar Night. Read More »
