Bennu is about to be sampled
We are super pleased to share that the OSIRIS-REx mission is now scheduled to collect materials from the surface of the asteroid Bennu on October 20, and the material will be collected from the Nightingale site.
Twinkling heart of the Milky Way spotted
In 2017, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) stared toward our system’s heart of darkness, Sag A*, a 4 million solar mass black hole. There they found a flicker of light, hanging on, in a mind-breaking orbit.
New type of asteroid discovered
Found out near Jupiter last June and classified as a Trojan asteroid, 2019 LD2 grew itself a tiny tail as volatile materials got heated by the sun and pushed away by the solar wind. This tail was confirmed last July, and its development was followed until geometry took this active asteroid out of our view and hid it behind the Sun.
Planet birth in AB Aurigae
Today, we have news from the Very Large Telescope about AB Aurigae, a young variable star 520 light-years away. When observed in the infrared, a spiral in the disk of gas and dust in this system indicates the presence of a forming planet at a Neptune-like distance from the star.
Massive galaxy found in early universe
A week after talking about a survey of galaxies formed in the early universe that rotates, we are getting a new press release announcing that the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array has discovered a particularly massive galaxy in the early universe.
Galaxy mergers trigger black hole growth
Last summer, undergraduate Rebecca Minsley traveled to the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Institute for Astrophysics to take part in a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Commonly just called an REU, these internships are a right of passage for the majority of future researchers.
China’s new generation of crewed spaceship test ship successfully returned
The first test of the Chinese next-generation crewed spacecraft returned to Earth and finished its mission on May 8th, after spending two days and nineteen hours in orbit.
Upgraded X-37B spaceplane rockets into orbit aboard Atlas 5 launcher
At 9:14am Eastern (13:14 UTC) on Sunday, May 17th, the US Air Force’s reusable Orbital Test Vehicle, more commonly known as the X-37B space plane, was launched into orbit on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from SLC 41 at Cape Canaveral, marking the start of the sixth flight since 2010.
Kuaizhou Rocket and Xingyun Satellite “Combine” for the First Time
A Kuaye-joe Kuaizhou 1A rocket launched two Xingyun-2 satellites from Jiǔquán Satellite Launch Center on May 12, 2020 at 1:16 AM (UTC). This was the 9th Kuaye-joe Kuaizhou 1A flight, launched from a transporter erector launcher, or TEL. To give a better idea of the rocket’s size, it’s smaller than Falcon 1 but bigger than Electron.
Newborn giant exoplanets confirmed
In early images using the new infrared pyramid wavefront sensor for adaptive optics (AO) correction, Keck Observatory showed what appeared to be planets orbiting the star PDS 70. It was initially unclear if this was real or an artifact in the images. Now it has been confirmed that this system is one that is the right combo of size, nearness, and brightness to allow us to distinguish the individual planets.
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