The sun just did something weird, and 3 other space stories you may have missed this week – Yahoo News
Space is very big and quite often, very weird. Last week, an image captured by NASA's Reconnaissance Orbiter looked just like a bear, and "The Green Comet" reached its closest point to Earth in 50,000 years. This week we’ve got a whole new set of developments. Here’s what you may have missed.
Starting off, this week saw some big tests for the future of spaceflight. After what’s become an almost routine Falcon 9 satellite launch on Tuesday, SpaceX fired up all but two stages of the 33-stage booster rocket Thursday meant for its long-awaited Starship spacecraft in Texas. If all continues to go well, SpaceX says the first Starship launch could happen as early as March.
Over in Hancock County, Miss., NASA conducted tests of a new rocket engine it hopes will power future flights to the moon, and at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) succeeded in launching its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) into orbit.
Footage of a “massive polar vortex” recorded by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Feb. 2, went viral this week, and scientists aren’t exactly sure what’s going on.
Talk about Polar Vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our Star. Implications for understanding the Sun's atmospheric dynamics above 55° here cannot be overstated! pic.twitter.com/1SKhunaXvP
— Dr. Tamitha Skov (@TamithaSkov) February 2, 2023
The vortex formed after a giant plasma filament located at 55 degrees latitude broke off from the sun’s surface. While this is the first time we’ve observed anything quite like this, the National Center for Atmospheric Research says increased solar activity at that particular location is a common feature of the 11-year solar cycle, during which the sun builds up to “solar maximum,” flips its polarity, then resets to “solar minimum.” However, the scientific community doesn’t know why it happens or how it affects the reversal of the sun’s magnetic field. The sun is projected to reach its next solar maximum in 2024, so it’s entirely possible we’ll see more strange solar phenomena between now and then.
Astronomers discovered a potentially habitable exoplanet orbiting a star in the Cygnus constellation, 31.2 light-years away. The planet, Wolf 1069b, is just a little larger and about 25% heavier than Earth and appears to have a rocky surface. Its presence in the so-called “habitable zone” of its solar system — not too hot and not too cold — suggests that there could also be liquid water on its surface, and an atmosphere.
But that’s where Wolf 1069b’s similarities to Earth end. Wolf 1069b is tidally locked to its sun, so one side of the planet is always day, and the other half is always night. It’s also much closer to its host star, a red dwarf, which is much smaller and much cooler than our own. Without an atmosphere, the surface temperature is estimated to swing between 55 degrees on the bright side and a frigid minus 140 degrees on the dark side. However, if Wolf 1069b does indeed have an atmosphere to trap in heat, the average surface temperature could sit at around 40 degrees. Still, the evidence to suggest that Wolf 1069b could sustain life is there, even if it may not be a great place to visit.
Finally, this week brought to light the puzzling discovery of a ring around Quaoar, a dwarf planet about half the size of Pluto sitting in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. Rings usually form when objects enter orbit around a celestial body within what’s known as the Roche limit, the distance within which gravitational forces cause objects to disintegrate. However, Quaoar’s ring appears to orbit outside that limit, at a distance where orbiting objects should clump together to form a moon. So how did Quaoar’s ring form? The short answer is: Nobody knows.
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The environmental and community impacts of a fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, are still being examined. Here's what we know.
Videos of the Norfolk Southern Railway train that went off the tracks in Northeastern Ohio show that the train was on fire miles before it derailed on February 3 and caused an ongoing hazardous chemical disaster.
That video and a second one are raising questions about when the crew knew there was a problem.
It's the circle of life – or maybe it's the circle of light! A field crew from Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources was flying high above Waimea Canyon in Kauai, Hawaii, when they noticed something spectacular.
Visible light images, far-ultraviolet data, and infrared data are combined into one detailed portrait of the spiral galaxy NGC 6872, which is a whopping 522,000 light-years wide.
There are many pieces of evidence to help explain why the Earth spins, and some major mysteries. Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/DigitalVision via Getty Images Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why does the Earth spin? Sara H., age 5, New Paltz, New York A globe was the first thing I ever bought with my own money. I was maybe 5 years old, and I was really excited to take it home. As I quick
With detailed wall inscriptions and the only known funerary garden, the restored tombs are a unique monument.
I got back from my first term at Oxford and asked where my childhood bull terrier was. ‘He’s in the garden,’ said my family, collapsing with collective mirth. I looked: he wasn’t. As you’ve doubtless realised, he was in the garden – only six feet under. They’d been distraught about this at the time, deciding not to inform me so it didn’t ruin my college introduction. Only now they were over it, and found the whole thing darkly hilarious.
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When I, Robot (now streaming on Peacock!) came out almost two decades ago, the year 2035 still felt like a far-off future filled with possibilities both wonderful and terrifying. Now, not so much. The year, and some of its potentialities, are rapidly approaching. In the movie, humanity has crafted a veritable army of service robots, courtesy of the fictional corporation U.S. Robotics. The robots do everything for us, from running errands to cooking and cleaning, and everyone has welcomed them in
STORY: After President Joe Biden authorised the U.S. military to shoot down a series of unidentified airborne objects over the weekend, the U.S. Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said on Sunday, he’s not ruling out aliens – or any other explanation – yet. During a briefing call with reporters, General Glen VanHerck was asked whether he had ruled out an extraterrestrial origin for the three flying objects. “I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven't ruled out anything at this point. We continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown that approaches North America with the attempt to identify it." VanHerck's comments came after a U.S. F-16 fighter jet shot down an octagonal-shaped object earlier on Sunday over Lake Huron on the U.S.-Canada border. And Saturday, Canada authorised the U.S. Air Force to shoot down a cylindrical object flying over northwest Canada, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said on Sunday authorities were still looking to retrieve it. And on Friday, the Pentagon said U.S. forces had downed an unmanned, high-altitude object about the size of a small car, off the northern coast of Alaska. These objects are coming amid heightened tensions over North American airspace, a week after a U.S. warplane took down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. Though China insists it was a civilian research vessel. But on the Sunday call, VanHerck said the military was unable to immediately determine how the three recent objects were kept aloft, or where they were coming from. Saying, "We're calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason.” Still, while the flying objects remain unidentified, another U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the military had seen no evidence suggesting any of the objects in question were of extraterrestrial origin.
People spotted the 1m space rock streaking across the sky in the early hours of Monday morning.
Some conspiracy theorists think wildlife groups are covering up whale deaths. But these marine experts are just trying to solve the mystery.
A meteoroid could be seen lighting up the night sky in Paris in the early hours of Monday, February 13.Webcam footage shared by meteorologist Guillaume Séchet shows the one-meter object, described by the European Space Agency (ESA) as a small asteroid, flashing brightly near the Eiffel Tower in Paris at 3:59 am.The ESA tweeted that Sar2667 was expected to “safely” strike the Earth’s atmosphere over northern France shortly before 4 am local time (3 am local time in England).“This is just the seventh time an #asteroidimpact has ever been predicted before it happens.” ESA tweeted. “A sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities!” Credit: Guillaume Séchet / Meteo-Paris.com via Storyful
Kenya wants to kill some six million quelea birds which have invaded rice fields around the country.
A meteoroid was filmed moving through the sky over southern England in the early hours of Monday, February 13.Footage by Twitter user @KadeFlowers shows the one-meter object, described by the European Space Agency (ESA) as a small asteroid, flashing brightly over Brighton at 2:59 am. “Got It! How beautiful!” the caption read.The European Space Agency (ESA) tweeted that Sar2667 was expected to “safely” strike the Earth’s atmosphere over northern France shortly before 4 am local time (3 am local time in England).“This is just the seventh time an #asteroidimpact has ever been predicted before it happens.” ESA tweeted. “A sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities!” Credit: @KadeFlowers via Storyful
Leading theories suggest that the first energy used by life was either from the sun or from geothermal heat and chemistry at the bottom of the ocean.
A meteor could be seen lighting up the night sky over northern France in the early hours of Monday, February 13.Footage by Twitter user @MegaLuigi shows the object, described by the European Space Agency (ESA) as a small asteroid, flashing brightly over Rouen in Normandy at 3:59 am. “Super bright!” the caption read.The ESA tweeted that Sar2667 was expected to “safely” strike the Earth’s atmosphere over northern France shortly before 4 am local time (3 am local time in England).“This is just the seventh time an #asteroidimpact has ever been predicted before it happens.” ESA tweeted. “A sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities!” Credit: @MegaLuigi via Storyful
