On April 3, NASA turned off CRISM, one of its oldest instruments used to study Mars. The instrument was aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and had been providing high-resolution mineral maps for 17 years. CRISM, or the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, detected minerals such as clays, hematite, and sulfates on the Red Planet’s … Read more
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has reached a significant milestone as the primary structure, which will serve as the “skeleton” of the spacecraft, has been moved into the clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This structure will provide the main support for the observatory, and the spacecraft bus will … Read more
Today in Nature, the origins of the powerful jet emanating from the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy were unveiled, alongside the first-ever image of the jet and its source together. The observations also revealed that the black hole’s ring is considerably larger than previously thought. The Global mm-VLBI Array (GMVA) … Read more
Astronomers have discovered that asteroid 3200 Phaethon is even stranger than previously thought. While it has been known for some time that Phaethon behaves like a comet, with a brightening and tail formation as it approaches the sun, a recent study using two NASA solar observatories has revealed that the tail is not made of … Read more
Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding quasars, which are the brightest and most powerful objects in the universe. The mystery behind what triggers their intense activity has puzzled researchers since their discovery 60 years ago. However, a new study led by scientists at the Universities of Sheffield and Hertfordshire has uncovered that the ignition … Read more