News – Page 40 – Astronomy Now

Curiosity closing in on Mars’ transition from wet to dry

9 October 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is closing in on finding out when the martian environment transitioned from a habitable era to the inhospitable desert seen today.

Saturn now boasts Solar System’s most known moons: 82

7 October 2019 Astronomy Now

Planetary astronomer Scott Sheppard leads team in discovery of 20 new moons around Saturday, pushing the ringed planet’s total to a record 82.

Infant stars dine on a ‘cosmic pretzel’ of dusty debris

4 October 2019 Astronomy Now

Two young stars in a binary system weave an unusual tapestry as surrounding gas and dust are pulled into looping filaments and swirls.

NASA, DLR continue work to salvage martian “mole”

4 October 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA and the German Aerospace Center continue exhaustive efforts to help a stalled heat probe hammer its way below the martian surface.

Record rocket firing avoids mission-ending eclipse for Juno

2 October 2019 Astronomy Now

A record 10.5-hour thruster firing nudged the solar-powered Juno spacecraft’s orbit just enough to avoid a mission-ending eclipse.

Astronomers spot three supermassive black holes on collision course

30 September 2019 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using X-ray, optical and infrared telescopes have spotted three galaxies – hosting three supermassive black holes – in the process of merging.

New computer simulation brings black holes to life

26 September 2019 William Harwood

A new computer simulation shows how a black hole’s titanic gravity warps space and bends the light emitted by super-heated debris in a surrounding accretion disc.

Study shows Venus may have once enjoyed a temperate climate

23 September 2019 Astronomy Now

Computer simulations indicate Venus may have been a temperate, possibly habitable, planet for two to three billion years before evolving into the hellish hothouse seen today.

Bouncing boulders and collapsing cliffs on comet 67P

20 September 2019 Astronomy Now

Sifting through images from ESA’s Rosetta mission, researchers are learning more about the properties of comet 67P by studying where boulders fall and cliffs collapse.

Caught in the act: galaxies turning into quasars

19 September 2019 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have caught normally mild-mannered galaxies in the process of turning into quasars, a faster-than-expected transition that flies in the face of current theory.