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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Hubble finds best Evidence for Elusive Mid-sized Black Hole

    April 1, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This illustration depicts a cosmic homicide in action. A wayward star is being shredded by the intense gravitational pull of a black hole that contains tens of thousands of solar masses. The stellar remains are forming an accretion disk around the black hole. Flares of X-ray light from the super-heated gas disk alerted astronomers to the black hole’s location; otherwise it lurked unknown in the dark. The elusive object is classified as an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH), as it is much less massive than the monster black holes that dwell in the centers of galaxies. Therefore, IMBHs are mostly quiescent because they do not pull in as much material, and are hard to find. Hubble observations provide evidence that the IMBH dwells inside a dense star cluster...
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    A Martian mash up: Meteorites tell story of Mars’ water history

    March 31, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A Martian Mash Up: Meteorites Tell Story of Mars’ Water History

    University of Arizona researchers probed Martian meteorites to reconstruct Mars’ chaotic history. Their findings suggest that Mars might not have had a global magma ocean.

    Researchers probed Martian meteorites to reconstruct Mars’ chaotic history. Their findings suggest that Mars might not have had a global magma ocean.

    In Jessica Barnes’ palm is an ancient, coin-sized mosaic of glass, minerals and rocks as thick as a strand of wool fiber. It is a slice of Martian meteorite, known as Northwest Africa 7034 or Black Beauty, that was formed when a huge impact cemented together various pieces of Martian crust.

    Barnes is an assistant professor of planetary sciences in the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Labo...

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    ALMA resolves Gas impacted by Young Jets from Supermassive Black Hole

    March 30, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Reconstructed images of what MG J0414+0534 would look like if gravitational lensing effects were turned off. The emissions from dust and ionized gas around a quasar　are shown in red. The emissions from carbon monoxide gas are shown in green, which have a bipolar structure along the jets.
    Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), K. T. Inoue et al.

    Astronomers obtained the first resolved image of disturbed gaseous clouds in a galaxy 11 billion light-years away by using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The team found that the disruption is caused by young powerful jets ejected from a supermassive black hole residing at the center of the host galaxy. This result will cast light on the mystery of the evolutionary process of galaxies in the early Universe.

    It is commonly k...

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    NASA’s Perseverance Rover Is The Inspiration We Need Right Now

    March 29, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Color image of a black metal plaque, depicting line art of the Earth, Mars, and the Sun, on a strut on a Mars rover.
    The plaque offers a stylistic nod to the Voyager record covers and the Pioneer plates.
    NASA

    NASA’s Perseverance rover is on track to launch this summer, and when it does, it will carry the names of nearly 11 million people to Mars.

    Earlier this month, as communities around the country locked themselves down in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, a team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida started the process of packing the rover for launch. They lowered and locked the rover’s mast, stowed away its robotic arm, and retracted its wheels. But first, they fixed the rover up with the ultimate vanity license plate.

    Last year, NASA asked people around the world to submit their names to its “Send Your Name to Mars” program, and 10,932,295 people responded...

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