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Another Earth-size exoplanet discovered in habitable zone of nearby star
The planet, named TOI 700 e, is one of four known planets orbiting a cool star approximately 100 light-years away. The planet was discovered by NASA’s planet-hunting telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
NASA’s planet-hunting telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has discovered a second Earth-size planet within the habitable zone of a nearby star.
Named TOI 700 e, the planet is one of four known planets orbiting a cool star approximately 100 light-years away. The system was already known to host one planet, called TOI 700 d, in the habitable zone, but recent research that will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters reveals it is joined by another planet inside its orbit. The other two planets in the system, TOI 700 b and TOI 700 c, orbit closer to the star and, as such, are likely to have higher temperatures, putting them outside of the habitable zone.
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The UK’s first-ever rocket launch ends in failure
The LauncherOne rocket was successfully released from the modified 747 but later experienced an anomaly.
What should have been a historic moment for the UK ended in failure last night after an undisclosed “anomaly” prevented the country’s satellite mission from reaching orbit. The Virgin Orbit “Start Me Up” mission was the first-ever rocket launched from British soil.
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Massive eruption explodes from the sun
A massive eruption of magnetized particles burst from the sun on Tuesday (Jan.3), accompanied by a powerful six-hour-long solar flare.
The eruption, a so-called coronal mass ejection (CME), emerged from a sunspot on the far side of the sun, and will not hit Earth, experts say. CMEs are clouds of highly charged particles from the sun's upper atmosphere, the corona. If directed at Earth, they reach the planet within a few days. Interactions of the charged solar particles with Earth's magnetic field trigger beautiful aurora displays but also cause all sorts of problems such as power blackouts, GPS disruptions and satellite malfunctions. Solar flares, on the other hand, are bright flashes of light that arrive at the planet within eight minutes and can briefly disrupt radio communications.
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Keep your eyes peeled for this comet in 2023
This could be the first comet visible to the unaided eye since 2020.
Here’s something to look forward to in the new year: 2023 could give us a once-in-a-generation chance to see a new comet grace our skies.
Stargazers can keep their eyes peeled for Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) throughout January and early February, although they’ll need a telescope or binoculars to spot it at first. As the comet races closer to Earth, however, there’s a chance the comet could become visible to the naked eye under dark skies. If that happens, it’ll be the first comet to reveal itself to the unaided eye since NEOWISE passed us by in 2020.
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15 times black holes surprised us in 2022
An image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, a behemoth dubbed Sagittarius A*, revealed by the Event Horizon Telescope on May 12, 2022.
Black holes are giant warps in space and time whose pitch-black nature keeps them mysterious. Yet scientists continue to push their understanding of the objects in deep space.
Over the past year, astronomers have gleaned new insights into black holes across the universe. Here is a list of 15 times black holes surprised us in 2022
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2022: a space yearbook
There was a lot going on in the space industry this year — here are some of the highlights.
It was a good year for space. NASA finally got its long-anticipated Moon rocket off the ground, SpaceX beat its annual record for space launches in July, and JWST continued to bring us picture after picture of the wonders of the cosmos.
That’s not to say everything ran smoothly — there were definitely some big bumps in the road — but space research, observation, and industry all had huge years nonetheless. And even in a year as full of progress and innovation as this one, some projects really set themselves apart.
Here are some of the biggest, best, and weirdest moments of the year in space.
NASA's InSight lander just recorded its biggest quake on Mars ever
The mega-marsquake, which is 5 times stronger than the previous record, may be the last big find from the InSight Mars Lander.
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How researchers recorded the sounds of a Martian dust devil for the first time
The Perseverance rover listened in as a dust devil whirled by its location on Mars.
On September 27th, 2021, a dust devil whirled past the Perseverance rover on Mars. The rover not only caught the dust devil on its cameras and with its weather sensors but also picked up the faint, eerie sounds of the dust devil on its microphone, the first instrument of its kind to record sounds on Mars.
“We were convinced that the microphone was going to give us a whole load of new observations of atmospheric features on Mars that we hadn’t been able to see before,” Naomi Murdoch of the University of Toulouse, lead author of a Nature Communications paper about the research, said to The Verge. “And we haven’t been disappointed!”
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Moonikin Campos rests inside Orion capsule during lunar round-trip
NASA's dummy Moonikin Campos is resting inside the Orion spaceship during the Artemis 1 lunar roundtrip in a new image released by NASA.
The doll, strapped into the commander seat of the Orion crew capsule, is wearing a real space suit designed for future moon-bound astronauts. Named after NASA electrical engineer Arturo Campos who played a key role in rescuing the troubled Artemis 13 mission in 1970, the mannequin is fitted with dozens of sensors designed to assess the effects of the deep space environment on the human body. Unlike astronauts working on the International Space Station, who are protected by Earth's magnetic field, space travelers on lunar round trips will be subject to much higher levels of cosmic radiation, which can be harmful to their health.
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A black hole ripped apart a star and brought together astronomers from around the world.
Astronomers spotted a ‘weird’ flash in February, equivalent to the light of more than 1,000 trillion suns.
It was an event not seen in more than a decade: a sudden flash of energy launched out from the center of a distant galaxy, bright enough to be visible from 8.5 billion light-years away. With a burst of light equivalent to more than 1,000 trillion suns, the flash was first detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility, a survey of the entire night sky conducted from the Palomar Observatory in California.
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How a tiny briefcase-sized spacecraft will prospect for water on the Moon
Lunar Flashlight is hitching a ride on a SpaceX rocket sending two other missions to the Moon.
The Artemis I mission isn’t the only lunar mission happening this month. On Wednesday, November 30th, a SpaceX Falcon 9 is expected to launch a commercial Japanese lander called Hakuto-R to the Moon, carrying the United Arab Emirates Rashid rover. And there will also be an extra payload tucked inside the rocket: a tiny orbiter called Lunar Flashlight.
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NASA 'giddy' over amazing moon views from Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft
"The results were eye-watering."
NASA officials say Artemis 1 mission teams are "giddy" after witnessing how well their Orion spacecraft has been performing so far on its way towards lunar orbit.
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LightSail 2 just met its fiery end, but solar sailing is just getting started
The latest LightSail mission gave us a glimpse into the future of solar sailing.
After three years in space, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 mission burned up in the atmosphere on Thursday, November 17th. During its mission, the crowdfunded spacecraft made 18,000 orbits of the planet using its giant reflective sail and demonstrated that controlled solar sailing is possible.
LightSail may now be over, but it has opened the door to the use of solar sailing in space exploration. “It doesn’t fit every situation, but now it gives another arrow in the quiver of options for types of propulsion you can use,” said Bruce Betts, Chief Scientist and LightSail program manager.
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Why NASA is launching a new polar satellite
JPSS-2 will join other satellites in a polar orbit, keeping track of weather conditions around the world. A new Earth observation satellite will launch into space, where it will help scientists forecast the weather and keep an eye on increasingly common extreme weather events. The satellite, called Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2), is part of a global observation system and a product of a partnership between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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Tropical storm Nicole swirls above the Caribbean
Storm Nicole swirls above the Caribbean as it approaches Florida, forcing NASA to consider emergency scenarios for its upcoming Artemis 1 test flight to the moon.
The storm, seen in this video sequence captured by the GOES-17 satellite of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), formed early on Monday (Nov. 7) morning.
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How the James Webb Space Telescope changed astronomy in its first year.
After decades of planning and billions of dollars spent, here’s how the new space observatory is already transforming the way we study the cosmos.
Despite the debates over the telescope’s naming and history, one thing has become abundantly clear this year — the scientific ability of JWST is remarkable. Beginning its science operations in July 2022, it has already allowed astronomers to get new views and uncover mysteries about a huge range of space topics.
The most pressing aim of JWST is one of the most ambitious projects in the recent history of astronomy: to look back at some of the first galaxies, which formed when the universe was brand new.
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Amazing photos of gorgeously green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZFT)
Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is already putting on a show as it makes its way through our solar system.
The Comet C/2022 E3 (ZFT) could put on an amazing show for skywatchers January and February 2023, when it could become visible to the unaided eye in the night sky.
Discovered in March 2022 by the Zwicky Transient Facility, the comet is making its first close pass by Earth in 50,000 years and has not been seen since the time of the Neanderthals. Since its discovery, stargazers and astrophotographers have captured amazing images of the gorgeous green comet.
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The first launch of 2023 for a SpaceX Falcon 9 was the booster's record-tying 15th flight.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched into a brilliant blue sky this morning (Jan. 3) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying 114 satellites to orbit — the second-most spacecraft ever lofted on a single mission.
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The most distant spacecraft in the solar system — Where are they now?
Humans have been flinging things into deep space for 50 years now, since the 1972 launch of Pioneer 10. We now have five spacecraft that have either reached the edges of our solar system or are fast approaching it: Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons.
Most of these probes have defied their expected deaths and are still operating long beyond their original mission plans. These spacecraft were originally planned to explore our neighboring planets, but now they're blazing a trail out of the solar system, providing astronomers with unique vantage points in space — and they've been up to a lot in 2022.
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Winter on Mars looks beautiful in this festive NASA video
"We see spider-shaped features, fans, geysers, Dalmatian spots, fried eggs, all kinds of unique objects," NASA says.
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A million Starlink subscribers.
SpaceX has announced that its satellite internet service now has a million active subscribers.
That’s a lot of people getting their internet from space.It makes sense that the company hit the milestone this year — in the past 12 months it’s expanded its Starlink offerings, adding options for people with businesses, boats, planes, and RVs. All the extra subscribers do come at a cost though; the company recently announced that it’s adding data caps.
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How NASA’s newest satellite will monitor lakes and rivers from space
The SWOT satellite will keep track of water systems around the globe.
Early tomorrow morning, a new Earth monitoring instrument called the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, or SWOT, will launch into space on a SpaceX rocket. The satellite will take the first global survey of Earth’s freshwater systems from space, observing not only the oceans but also lakes, rivers, and coastal regions. It will be able to measure the height of water in these systems for the first time.
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NASA successfully completes its Artemis I mission.
The Orion spacecraft safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean after a historic mission around the Moon. NASA’s Orion spacecraft has returned to Earth. The uncrewed capsule safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico’s Baja California around 12:40PM ET on Sunday, marking the end of the landmark Artemis I mission.
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China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts return to Earth after helping build Tiangong space station
China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts have handed over control of the Tiangong space station and returned to Earth.
The return capsule from the mission's Shenzhou spacecraft set down safely after sunset within the Dongfeng landing area in the Gobi Desert in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Sunday (Dec. 4) at around 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT, 8:00 p.m. local time), about nine hours after undocking from the country's recently completed Tiangong space station.
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A simple plan.
NASA and the European Space Agency are developing a plan to bring interplanetary rock samples — already collected by the Perseverance rover — from Mars back to Earth by 2033.Watch as Lizzie Philip explains the plan, as it exists so far, for the Mars Sample Return Mission.
JWST peers into the atmosphere of an exoplanet bombarded by stellar radiation.
Humanity’s latest space telescope is giving us a clearer picture of planets far outside our solar system.
This week, astronomers announced that they’d found evidence of chemical reactions in the atmosphere of an exoplanet 700 light years away from Earth. Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope created a detailed chemical portrait of the scorching gases swirling around exoplanet WASP-39b. This “hot Saturn” planet orbits extremely close to its host star, meaning it has high temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit or 900 degrees Celsius. It is also puffy, with around one quarter the mass of Jupiter but 1.3 times its size.
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NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft aces close moon flyby in crucial engine burn
Orion zoomed just 80 miles (130 kilometers) above the lunar surface Monday (Nov. 21) at 7:44 a.m. ET. and completed an engine burn needed to continue its historic mission. NASA's Artemis 1 mission fired its engines close to the moon today (Nov. 21), finishing the maneuver successfully out of communication with Earth.
Artemis 1's uncrewed Orion spacecraft has been cruising toward the moon since Wednesday morning (Nov. 16), when it launched atop NASA's gigantic Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
The burn "sent Orion close enough to the lunar surface to leverage the moon's gravitational force, and swing the spacecraft once around the moon toward entry into a distant retrograde orbit," NASA's Sandra Jones said during an Artemis 1 livestream Monday (Nov. 21) at 8:28 a.m. EST, nearly an hour after the burn took place.
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NASA’s Artemis 1 mission is finally headed towards the Moon
The Space Launch System sent the Orion spacecraft on its way. It’s a brand new era for the US government’s space program.
With a roar that lit up the night sky, NASA sent its colossal next-generation rocket soaring into space for the first time on Wednesday. The Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, took off at 1:47AM ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, signaling the start of a bold new era for the US government’s space program. It also marks a major success for NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon, which has been plagued by years of delays, development mishaps, and billions of dollars in budget overruns. During the past few months both hurricanes and technical difficulties caused launch delays — including two scrubs. Then engineers managed to fix both an intermittent hydrogen leak and a “bad ethernet switch” in the hours just before launch.
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Powerful JPSS-2 weather satellite launches with Mars heat shield test on final Atlas V flight from West Coast
Thursday morning's (Nov. 10) liftoff also lofted a heat-shield demonstrator that could help land heavy payloads on Mars down the road.
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Astronomers Discover Closest Black Hole to Earth
Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i reveals first dormant, stellar-mass black hole in our cosmic backyard
Astronomers using the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance our understanding of the evolution of binary systems.
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