The quest to understand the formation mechanisms of globular clusters was limited by the Hubble Space Telescope’s ability to peer back in time. Now, JWST’s larger mirror has allowed astronomers to find gravitationally lensed galaxies that have globular clusters almost nine billion years old. Plus, two new super-mercury exoplanets, This Week in Space History, and an interview with Eric Palmer about the DART mission.
Using a machine learning algorithm, scientists have confirmed 68 out of 77 potential gravitational lens candidates from a subset of over 5,000 possibilities. Plus, generation one stars, astronauts coming home, dating craters on Earth, lunar glass, and an interview with Amanda Sickafoose regarding the DART mission.
After ten months of space travel, NASA’s DART spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Didymos, targeted the moonlet Dimorphos, and successfully flung itself at the surface. Multiple observations confirm that the system brightened and even managed to resolve a cloud of debris. Plus, rocket launches, an update on the SLS, some broken physics, and International Observe the Moon Night.
Astronomers using the 1.2-meter Whipple Observatory to follow the brightness of a lensed galaxy for 14.5 years have calculated that the time delay between light arriving along the shortest and farthest paths is 6.73 years. Plus, DART, Hayabusa2, Juno, fast radio bursts, and This Week in Space History, we look back at NASA’s 1990s attempts to reach Mars.
With the release of JWST’s first science images behind us, we now catch up on all the rocket launches of the past few days. Meanwhile, Bennu continues to be a favorite research topic and is the subject of three new papers released this week. Plus, pulsar-orbiting planets, and this week in rocket history, we look back at GEOTAIL.
A star cataloged as Gliese 781 is approaching our solar system and in slightly more than a million years from now, will reach the Oort Cloud, likely disrupting the orbits of icy bodies that could head toward Earth. Plus, an Indian launch, Asteroid Day, understanding our ice giants, and a review of Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi.
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