On September 19th at around 02:00 UTC, a privately-owned Australian company called Southern Launch successfully lifted a small payload on a suborbital mission.
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Long March 4B launches new ocean observation satellite
On September 21 at 5:40 UTC, China launched a Long March 4B rocket carrying the Haiyang-2C to orbit from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx to Asteroid Bennu: “You’ve got a little Vesta on you…” / Ryugu’s rocky past
In Nature Astronomy there are two different papers looking at the same weird feature of the asteroids Bennu and Ryugu.
How planetary nebulae get their shapes
It turns out, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) was needed to study the wind morphology in fourteen planetary nebulae.
Cosmic X-rays reveal an indubitable signature of black holes
In astronomy, one of our more annoying struggles has come from trying to find stellar-mass black holes.
Unexpected Ultraviolet Aurora Detected at a Comet
Analysis of ultraviolet data from ESA’s Rosetta mission’s 2014-2016 encounter with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko shows evidence of the comet having aurorae.
VLBA Makes First Direct Distance Measurement to Magnetar
Our next story looks at a neutron star with an extreme magnetic field that is located some 8,100 light-years away. Cataloged as XTE J1810-197, this tiny object regularly pulsed in the radio from 2003-2008.
Hints of Fresh Ice in Enceladus’s Northern Hemisphere
In a new paper appearing in the journal Icarus, a research team led by Rozenn Robidel releases stunning composite images of Saturn’s moon Enceladus that show Infrared heatmaps superimposed on detailed maps.
Hubble Captures Crisp New Image of Jupiter & Europa
We all know the Hubble Space Telescope takes amazing pictures of objects outside our solar system and even the Milky Way. Today, we present one taken of objects within the solar system – Jupiter and its moon, Europa.
Study Shows Difficulty in Finding Evidence of Life on Mars
A study from researchers at Cornell University and Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología using simulations involving clays and amino acids has given us pessimistic results.
