New research has pinpointed small, violent faults caused by the breakup of an ancient supercontinent as the potential cause of a major loss in the rock record of the Grand Canyon, known as the Great Unconformity. Plus, using sky mapping tools to find earthly tombs and a review of Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary.”
Using a neutron spectrometer on board the Dawn spacecraft, scientists have found elevated concentrations of hydrogen in Ceres’ Occator Crater, which provides evidence of an icy crust. Plus, everything is on fire in the western United States, and we review “The Past is Red” by Catherynne M. Valente.
Based on X-ray detections from the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, scientists used the Chandra X-ray Observatory and found rings called light echoes moving out from a black hole and its companion star, reflecting off the surrounding dust clouds. Plus, solving the puzzle of the Sun and using glassy nodules to find a meteorite impact.
After several weeks of trying different methods, the operations team successfully revived the stalwart Hubble Space Telescope, which experienced a payload computer fault back on June 13. The first images taken were of several unusual galaxies. Plus, Jupiter’s moon Io triggers radio emissions from the giant planet, and this week, What’s Up returns with a look at the Summer Triangle.
A tiny black hole, only three solar masses, has been found inside the Milky Way in the constellation Monoceros. One of the smallest black holes ever found, it is also the closest one to Earth. Plus, Perseverance, Gaia, a brown dwarf, new images of Jupiter, seismic monitoring from space, and this week’s What’s Up.
In another first for NASA’s Perseverance rover, a cube-shaped instrument called MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, has successfully converted some of Mars’ atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen. Plus, a wild roundup of stories including exoplanets, sky maps, fast radio bursts, meteorites, and the problem with symmetry.
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