Category Astronomy/Space

Artist’s conception shows two supermassive black holes, similar to those observed by UNM researchers, orbiting one another more than 750 million light years from Earth. Credit: Joshua Valenzuela/UNM

For the first time ever, astronomers at The University of New Mexico say they’ve been able to observe and measure the orbital motion between two supermassive black holes hundreds of millions of light years from Earth – a discovery more than a decade in the making. In early 2016, an international team, including a UNM alumnus, working on the LIGO project detected gravitational waves, confirming Albert Einstein’s 100-year-old prediction. These waves were the result two stellar mass black holes (~30 solar mass) colliding in space within the Hubble time...

The solar array cooling system for the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft — one element of which is the large, square black radiator visible at center, one of two that will be installed — is shown undergoing thermal testing at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in late February. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL

As NASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft begins its first historic encounter with the sun’s corona in late 2018 – flying closer to our star than any other mission in history – a revolutionary cooling system will keep its solar arrays at peak performance, even in extremely hostile conditions...

This is a composite image of Uranus by Voyager 2 and two different observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope — one for the ring and one for the auroras. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Lamy/Observatoire de Paris

Unlike Earth, this icy planet’s magnetosphere opens and closes every day. More than 30 years after Voyager 2 sped past Uranus, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using the spacecraft’s data to learn more about the icy planet. Their new study suggests that Uranus’ magnetosphere, the region defined by the planet’s magnetic field and the material trapped inside it, gets flipped on and off like a light switch every day as it rotates along with the planet...

The Pancam on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took the component images of this enhanced-color scene during the mission’s “walkabout” survey of an area just above the top of “Perseverance Valley,” in preparation for driving down the valley. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

NASA’s senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is examining rocks at the edge of Endeavour Crater for signs that they may have been either transported by a flood or eroded in place by wind. Those scenarios are among the possible explanations rover-team scientists are considering for features seen just outside the crater rim’s crest above “Perseverance Valley,” which is carved into the inner slope of the rim.

The team plans to drive Opportunity down Perseverance Valley after completing a “walkabout”...