Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul><li>The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) took one of the most detailed pictures of the <keyword id="67503" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="milky-way">Milky Way</keyword>'s core — the <keyword id="8537034" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="swan-nebula">Swan Nebula</keyword>.<br /></li><li>The image was presented at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) conference on Tuesday. <br /></li><li>Scientists have spotted nine new areas where the Swan Nebula is collapsing and <keyword id="1858157" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="new-stars">new stars</keyword> are being born amid clouds of gas and dust.<br /></li></ul>The world's largest airborne telescope — the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) — just captured the most detailed view of the centre of our galaxy. <br /><br />The Universities Space Research Association (<a href="https://newsroom.usra.edu/sofia-reveals-how-the-swan-nebula-hatched/">USRA</a>) shared this mind-boggling image of the Swan Nebula during the American Astronomical Society (AAS) conference on Tuesday.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="sofia3" msid="73150977" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;These dense clouds of gas and dust at the center of the Swan Nebula are more than 600 lightyears wide &amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>

<br />More than 600 light-years wide, the image shows dense clouds of gas and dust that are swirling around each other. It allowed scientists to spot nine new areas where the nebula's clouds are collapsing and where new stars could one day emerge. <br /><br />"This is the most detailed view of the nebula we have ever had. It's the first time we can see some of its youngest, massive stars, and start to truly understand how it evolved into the iconic nebula we see today," said USRA's Jim De Buizer<br /><br /><div type="Youtube" id="sgEkCZ-1CNA" title="SOFIA Reveals New View of Milky Way’s Center" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sgEkCZ-1CNA/mqdefault.jpg"></div>
<strong><br />The birth of new stars<br /></strong>The Swan Nebula is more than 5,000 lightyears from Earth in the constellation, Sagittarius — and it's right next to the <keyword id="2104882" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="20" keywordseo="supermassive-black-hole">supermassive black hole</keyword> at the centre of the Milky Way.<br /><br />More than a 100 of the massive young stars in our galaxy lie at its core — each multiple times the size of the Sun. But the youngest of them are hidden in clouds of gas. This makes them difficult to spot even with space telescopes. The collective light being given off is so bright that the resulting images look overexposed.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="sofia1_edited" msid="73150887" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The most detailed image of the Swan Nebula at the center of the Milky Way galaxy taken by the world’s largest airborne telescope - the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA)&amp;lt;span class=&amp;quot;redactor-invisible-space&amp;quot;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>

<br />SOFIA's Faint Object Infrared Camera (FORCAST) allowed the telescope to peer through the cocoons of dust and gas to see new young generations of stars living within. <br /><br />Scientists don't know exactly how stars are born. So far, they've been able to ascertain that protostars are the earlier known phase in stellar evolution. This is when a newborn star is so young that it's still feeding off the molecular cloud that surrounds it. <br /><br />These protostars have been found in nine new areas where the nebula is collapsing.<br /><br /><strong>The secrets of the Swan Nebula<br /></strong><br />The image also shows that Swan Nebula didn't always have a swan-like shape. The age of stars across the celestial body vary. The centre of the nebula — seen as blue gas heating the core in the image — is the oldest. It was likely formed first. <br /><br />The southern region of the Swan Nebula is the youngest. This is where most of the protostars have been spotted.<br /><br />The northern area formed sometime in between the two other regions. The radiation and stellar winds from previous generations of stars that have died are scattered there. They prevent the next generation of stars from forming.<br /><br />The red areas near the edges of the nebula are cold dust, first detected by the Herschel Space Telescope.<br /><br /><strong>The Milky Way's supermassive black hole<br /></strong><br />Black holes are at the centre of most galaxies and the Milky Way is no different. Its black hole can be seen near the bottom with waves of fiery-looking gas surrounding it. <br /><br />However, the Milky Way's black hole is relatively quieter than most other black holes discovered, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). <br /><br />An image taken by SOPHIA last year revealed that the supermassive black hole is surrounded by an ‘invisible' magnetic field — a possible reason for the prevention of activity. <br /><br /><div type="image" title="sofia2_edited" msid="73151011" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The ‘invisible’ magnetic field over the Milky Way&amp;#39;s supermassive black hole&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>
<br />SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP jetliner carrying a 106-inch diameter telescope. The telescope itself is equipped with cameras, spectrometers and polarimeters. Unlike space-based telescopes, like Hubble, SOFIA gets to land after each flight. This gives scientists the opportunity to continuously monitor and upgrade its instruments.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/supermassive-black-hole-bigger-than-7-billion-suns-is-spinning-so-fast-that-its-close-to-breaking-the-laws-of-physics/articleshow/73137059.cms">Supermassive black hole bigger than 7 billion Suns is spinning so fast that it's close to breaking the laws of physics</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/nasas-planet-hunter-uncovers-its-first-world-with-two-stars-1300-light-years-away/articleshow/73133158.cms">NASA's planet-hunter uncovers its first world with two stars 1,300 light-years away</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/scientists-predict-a-star-thats-slowly-been-getting-brighter-over-the-past-decades-will-explode-in-2083/articleshow/73138295.cms?src=hp_latest">A star that's slowly been getting brighter over the past decades will explode in 2083</a></strong><br />

Stars are being born next to the Milky Way's supermassive black hole in a stunning new image by the world's largest airborne telescope

NASA used a Boeing 747 rigged with a massive telescope to discover water on the moon — take a look at SOFIA

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> scientists have discovered caches of <keyword id="15300" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Water">water</keyword> hidden across <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/radiation-on-the-moon-lunar-base-should-be-buried-2020-9">the moon's surface</a>.</li><li>Water could be a crucial resource for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-artemis-accords-deep-space-exploration-moon-mars-asteroids-comets-2020-10">astronaut missions to Mars</a>, since <keyword id="51841" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="ice">ice</keyword> can be converted into rocket fuel.</li><li>In a new study, a space plane detected the signal for H2O on the <keyword id="42440" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Moon">moon</keyword>'s surface. Other new research found small, permanent shadows where water ice could survive on the lunar surface.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-picks-astrobotic-deliver-viper-moon-rover-lunar-ice-2020-6">NASA's next moon rover</a> is designed to investigate water-rich regions of the moon.</li></ul><p>The moon is littered with patches of hidden water, NASA researchers have discovered.</p><p>That's great <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> for the agency's plans to send astronauts back to the moon, set up a permanent base there, and eventually use it as a stopping point on the way to Mars.</p><p>Those ambitions hinge on the ability to mine water ice on the moon and break it down into oxygen and hydrogen to make rocket fuel. Since it's extremely expensive and difficult to launch enough fuel off Earth to get astronauts to Mars, water on the moon is likely to play a critical role in kick-starting a new era of human deep-space exploration.</p><p>"You start making gas stations in space. This really starts cutting your dependence on bringing all that fuel from Earth," Angel Abbud-Madrid, the director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-ice-deposits-crater-map-lunuar-base-2018-8">previously told Business Insider</a>. "That's really been what's holding us back from deep-space exploration."</p><div type="image" title="mars human exploration settlement habitat astronauts martian" height="1135" width="1513" msid="78877199" hostid="261"></div><p>Until now, NASA didn't know how much water could be available on the moon or how easy it would be to mine. But two papers published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Monday make the future of lunar ice mining much brighter.</p><p><a href="https://nlcontent.springernature.com/d-redirect/TIDP653308X1174D6A9D2174B018CD710F64D762D6AYI4/?url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.nature.com%2farticles%2fs41550-020-01222-x&amp;linksource=https%3a%2f%2fnemo-web-feed-provider.live.cf.private.springer.com%2f15589138%2fpressReleases%2f%5bdossier-id%5d%3feditorialDomain%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fpress.nature.com%26publicationDomain%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252Farticlescles">One of the studies</a> confirmed the presence of molecular water in the moon's surface dust for the first time. <a href="https://nlcontent.springernature.com/d-redirect/TIDP653308X1174D6A9D2174B018CD710F64D762D6AYI4/?url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.nature.com%2farticles%2fs41550-020-1198-9&amp;linksource=https%3a%2f%2fnemo-web-feed-provider.live.cf.private.springer.com%2f15589138%2fpressReleases%2f%5bdossier-id%5d%3feditorialDomain%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fpress.nature.com%26publicationDomain%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252Farticlescles">The other</a> identified tens of billions of small, cold regions in shadows across the moon where the sun never shines and ice rests on the surface.</p><p>"Both, in different ways, would seem to indicate that there's more water available on the lunar surface than we've been thinking even recently," Leslie Gertsch, a geological engineer at the Missouri University of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> and Technology who was not involved in the studies, told Business Insider. "Whether it's mineable or not is another question."</p><h2>A space plane detected lunar H2O for the first time</h2><p>Experts had long thought the moon wouldn't be a safe place for water, since it has no atmosphere to shield its surface from the sun's radiation.</p><p>But scientists and their spacecraft have been picking up telltale signs of lunar water for the past three decades. First, they found hydrogen lingering over the poles. Then traces of water appeared in lunar-rock samples from the Apollo missions. Later, the Cassini spacecraft picked up signals of water as it glanced at the moon on its way to Saturn.</p><p>Finally, in 2018, scientists confirmed that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-ice-deposits-crater-map-lunuar-base-2018-8">water ice was sitting on the surface of the moon's poles</a>. These reservoirs lie in shadowed regions called "cold traps" that sunlight can't reach.</p><div type="image" title="ice water map moon lunar north south poles polar deposits shadowed craters pnas nasa" height="556" width="1127" msid="78877200" hostid="261"></div><p>But there was always the possibility that none of those discoveries was actually water as we know it — H2O — but a compound called hydroxyl.</p><p>Researchers tend to describe both compounds as "water," but the oxygen and hydrogen molecules that make up hydroxyl form a much stronger chemical bond than those in H2O.</p><p>"If we wanted to extract hydroxyl from a soil to use it for a resource, it would take a lot more energy to break that apart, to create other things like breathable oxygen or water to drink for the astronauts," Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a press briefing. "But with molecular water, if we have that on the moon and we can extract it, that makes it an easier process to get it to other compounds that we would want to use."</p><p>To find out whether the moon harbors molecular water or hydroxyl, Honniball hopped on a space plane.</p><div type="image" title="sofia liftoff moon" height="921" width="1637" msid="78877201" hostid="261"></div><p>The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy is a converted Boeing 747 souped up with a 2.7-meter telescope and the ability to fly into the stratosphere. That's high enough to avoid the atmosphere's distortion of infrared signals from the moon.</p><p>Honniball spent about nine hours in the plane, flying about 40,000 feet above the Earth. She detected the wavelengths of H2O — and, surprisingly, they came from a sunlit part of the moon.</p><p>That means the water molecules are probably embedded in glass beads that make up about 30% of the lunar soil. Those likely protect the H2O from the vaporizing powers of the sun.</p><p>Honniball doesn't know whether glass across the entire moon contains water — it could be specific to the region she studied. But either way, water molecules embedded in glass beads would not be easy to mine.</p><p>"There's a reason why high-level nuclear waste is planned to be put into glass," Gertsch said. "Glass does not let stuff out easily."</p><h2>Little shadows could harbor water across the moon</h2><div type="image" title="moon surface mountains shadow" height="1200" width="1600" msid="78877202" hostid="261"></div><p>Until now, the best-known caches of lunar water were those in the large, permanently shadowed regions at the poles — the coldest spots ever measured in our solar system.</p><p>But in digging through thousands of photos from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a group of researchers found smaller regions of permanent shadow littering the moon's surface.</p><p>Paul Hayne, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder who led the study, likened the discovery to "turning over a rock and finding all the gazillions of insects that skitter away." He estimated that there are tens of billions of these "micro cold traps" surrounding the moon's poles.</p><p>Hayne's team did not look for water in these regions, but previous research had already confirmed the presence of water ice in the large shadows on the poles.</p><p>"If there's water in these larger cold traps, then there should be water in the smaller ones too," Hayne told Business Insider.</p><p>This means that mining machines could theoretically stay in the sunlight — and avoid extreme freezing temperatures — while dredging ice from micro traps.</p><p>"You could go to a place in these polar regions and stand in the sunlight and bend over, or use a tool to extract water from one of these much smaller shadows that's much more accessible," Hayne said.</p><p>In all, Hayne's team estimated that shadowed cold-trap regions covered about 0.15% of the moon's surface.</p><div type="image" title="the moon surface" height="900" width="1200" msid="78877204" hostid="261"></div><p>If these micro cold traps are filled with water, that would make <keyword id="4758187" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="moon-mining">moon mining</keyword> easier, since they extend away from the poles and it's easier to land a spacecraft near the moon's equator.</p><p>But Gertsch said big questions about lunar ice remain. Though both of these discoveries are "enticing," she said, we can't really know the nature of the lunar ground until "we go up there and mess around."</p><h2>NASA is sending a water-hunting rover to the moon's south pole</h2><div type="image" title="viper moon rover nasa" height="1406" width="1875" msid="78877206" hostid="261"></div><p>To investigate lunar water up close, NASA is preparing to launch a drill and mass-measuring instrument to the moon's south pole in 2022. Once there, it will <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-intuitive-machines-to-land-water-measuring-payload-on-the-moon">try to harvest</a> water ice.</p><p>Then in 2023, NASA aims to launch the <keyword id="622010" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="viper">Viper</keyword> (short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) to trundle over rocky terrain, drilling into sections of moon ice and soil for analysis. Over its 100-day lifespan, the rover will have a main goal to collect data for NASA to map out the moon's water resources.</p><div type="image" title="astrobotic griffin moon lander lunar rover viper" height="1462" width="1950" msid="78877207" hostid="261"></div><p>Given their more accessible locations, Hayne's micro cold traps could be ideal targets for these missions.</p><p>Honniball's team, meanwhile, has requested 72 more hours on the Sofia plane for further lunar observations.</p><p>But if NASA really wants to set up a moon-mining operation, it will have a lot more work to do.</p><p>"It takes more than one rover," Gertsch said. "You can't just send one prospector on a donkey out into the mountains and expect to design a mine from that."</p>

The moon is sprinkled with patches of frozen water, NASA scientists discovered. Mining it may be crucial for travel to Mars and beyond.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Monday, <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> will share "an exciting new discovery" about the <keyword id="42440" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Moon">moon</keyword>.</li><li>The <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> agency has not revealed any details about the discovery, but said it could support "deep-space exploration."</li><li>NASA TV will stream live audio of the announcement. You can listen via the embed below.</li></ul><p>NASA made a cryptic announcement this week: It has "an exciting new discovery" about the moon, but it's not going to reveal the finding just yet.</p><p>Instead, it will share the details in a press briefing on Monday and stream the audio live online. (You can tune in via the embed below.)</p><p>"This new discovery contributes to NASA's efforts to learn about the moon in support of deep space exploration," the agency's <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-new-science-results-about-moon">statement</a> says. "Understanding the <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> of the moon also helps piece together the broader history of the inner solar system."</p><p>NASA's <keyword id="244551" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Artemis">Artemis</keyword> program aims to send astronauts back to the moon's surface by 2024, then later establish a lunar base from which it can hopscotch the first humans to Mars. It's not yet clear how the mysterious new discovery might affect those plans.</p><div type="image" title="This illustration made available by NASA in April 2020 depicts Artemis astronauts on the Moon. On Thursday, April 30, 2020, NASA announced the three companies that will develop, build and fly lunar landers, with the goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2024. The companies are SpaceX, led by Elon Musk; Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos; and Dynetics, a Huntsville, Ala., subsidiary of Leidos. (NASA via AP)" height="2160" width="3840" msid="78858581" hostid="261"></div><p>We do know, however, that the discovery was made by NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a modified Boeing 747 jet plane that uses a 9-foot telescope to capture infrared images of planets and other objects in our solar system. The plane flies about 41,000 feet above the Earth.</p><p>Four NASA officials and scientists will discuss the findings at 12 p.m. ET on Monday:</p><ul><li>Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA</li><li>Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA</li><li>Casey Honniball, postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland</li><li>Naseem Rangwala, project scientist for the SOFIA mission at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California</li></ul><p>NASA TV will stream audio of the announcement here:</p><h2>NASA's next missions to the moon are set to search for water</h2><p>Before it lands astronauts on the lunar surface, NASA plans to learn more about the moon's natural resources – especially its water deposits, which appear to exist mostly as ice clustered near the lunar poles.</p><p>Astronauts (or robots) could ostensibly mine that ice, melt it, store it, and use electricity to split the water into liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Both elements are key to making rocket propellant.</p><p>So far, NASA thinks most of that ice exists at the moon's South Pole. So in 2022, it plans to send a drill and mass spectrometer there to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-intuitive-machines-to-land-water-measuring-payload-on-the-moon">try to harvest some</a>. </p><p>Then in 2023, the agency aims to launch a golf-cart-sized lunar robot called the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER. Over the course of its 100-day lifespan, the rover will trundle over rocky terrain, drilling into sections of moon ice and soil to analyze their composition. The rover's main goal is to collect data that NASA can use to make maps of the moon's water resources.</p><div type="image" title="astrobotic griffin moon lander lunar rover viper" height="1462" width="1950" msid="78858585" hostid="261"></div><p>If the moon does indeed hold plenty of water, it could help NASA realize its goal of establishing a permanent lunar base. From there, astronauts could mine and produce fuel that could be used for trips back home or deeper into space. </p><p>Harvesting resources on the moon, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-details-of-artemis-missions-astronauts-return-to-moon-2020-9">said in September</a>, would allow space explorers to start "living off the land."</p>

NASA will share an 'exciting new discovery' about the moon on Monday. Listen to the announcement live.

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/new-horizons">New Horizons</a> probe successfully flew past a space rock called Ultima Thule, also known as 2014 MU<sub>69</sub>, on New Year's Day.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/ultima-thule" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ultima Thule</a>, which is 4 billion miles from Earth (and 1 billion miles beyond Pluto), is now the most distant object humanity has ever visited.</li><li>The nuclear-powered <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/spacecraft" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spacecraft</a> recorded hundreds photos of Ultima Thule, and it will beam that data home over ther next two years.</li><li>The flyby may reveal secrets of how planets in our <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/solar-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener">solar system</a> formed some 4.5 billion years ago.</li></ul><p>Scientists just flew NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-powered-spacecraft-nasa-history-2017-3">nuclear-powered</a> New Horizons probe past a mysterious, mountain-size rock beyond the orbit of Pluto.</p><p>The object - called Ultima Thule (pronounced "tool-ee") - is located more than <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons.php#Current-Position" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4 billion miles</a> from Earth. It's 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, which New Horizons visited <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-pluto-first-surface-photos-new-horizons-2015-7">in July 2015</a>.</p><p>The spacecraft phoned home at 10:39&#xa0;a.m. EST, confirming it wasn't destroyed by the maneuver. This makes Ultima Thule the most distant object that humanity has ever visited.</p><p>New Horizons pulled off the maneuver on New Year's Day, taking hundreds of photos in a highly choreographed, pre-programmed sequence. The space probe reached its closest point to the space rock - about <a href="https://twitter.com/KinetXSNAFD/status/1079787075195424768" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2,200 miles</a> - at 12:33 a.m. EST. New Horizons then turned around to photograph its exit at a speed of about 32,000 mph.</p><p>The mission was as surprising as it was ambitious: When NASA launched New Horizons toward Pluto in 2006, nobody knew Ultima Thule existed. There wasn't even a reliable way to detect the object (formally known as 2014 MU<sub>69</sub>) until astronauts plugged an upgraded camera into the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.</p><p>"This is a much more challenging flyby than the flyby of Pluto," <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/36/alan-stern/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alan Stern</a>, who leads the New Horizons mission, said during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVavgqSo5wg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a press conference</a> before the flyby. "I can't promise you success. We are straining at the capabilities of this spacecraft."</p><p>But a signal acquired by NASA and Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) confirmed the spacecraft survived. The first images are expected to arrive at Earth Tuesday night and be published early Wednesday morning.</p><p>"If we knew what to expect, we wouldn't be going to Ultima Thule," Stern previously told Business Insider. "This is what what exploration is about."</p><h2>What Ultima Thule is and where it's located</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>New Horizons coasted through a zone called the Kuiper Belt, a region where sunlight is about as weak as the light from a full moon on Earth. That far away, frozen leftovers of the solar system's formation called Kuiper Belt Objects, or KBOs, lurk in vast numbers. (Pluto is one of them.)</p><p>Ultima Thule is one of these pristine remnants. It has presumably remained in its distant and icy orbit for billions of years. Stern said the object's name comes from a Norse phrase that means "beyond the farthest frontiers."</p><p>The unprecedented data acquired by New Horizons might therefore reveal new clues about how the solar system evolved to form planets like Earth, Stern said.</p><p>"Ultima is the first thing we've been to that is not big enough to have a geological engine like a planet, and also something that's never been warmed greatly by the sun," he said. "It's like a time capsule from 4.5 billion years ago. That's what makes it so special."</p><p>Stern compared the flyby to an archaeological dig in Egypt.</p><p>"It's like the first time someone opened up the pharaoh's tomb and went inside, and you see what the culture was like 1,000 years ago," he said. "Except this is exploring the dawn of the solar system."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Another analogy: Stern said he thinks of Ultima Thule as a "planetary embryo," since it's a building block of larger planets that never became one.</p><p>"In that sense, it's like a paleontologist finding the fossilized embryo of a dinosaur," Stern said. "It has a very special value."</p><h2>Journey into the unknown</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Following New Horizons' <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pluto-north-pole-nasa-picture-2016-2">historic visit to Pluto</a> in 2015, NASA added the bonus mission to Ultima Thule.</p><p>During a press briefing on Monday, NASA revealed New Horizons' first image showing Ultima Thule's shape.</p><p>"It's a blob only a couple of pixels cross, but you can see just from that blob that it's an elongated blob - it's not round," John Spencer, a New Horizons project scientist, said during the briefing. "This is just the first glimpse of what's going to get rapidly better from here."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Stern said the first images that New Horizons captures during the flyby will each take two hours to transmit. Then each bit of data, moving at the speed of light as radio waves, will take about six hours to reach antennas on Earth. Those early photos will be released to the public on Wednesday.</p><p>However, it will take months to receive the most detailed, full-resolution images due to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-it-takes-so-long-for-new-horizons-to-send-images-2015-7">limitations</a> of the New Horizons spacecraft.</p><p>The first full-resolution images won't arrive until February, and it could take up to 20 months for the researchers to get all of the flyby data, Helene Winters, the project manager of New Horizons, said during the press briefing.</p><p>Stern shied away from making predictions about what images might show, citing how shocking the first close-up pictures of Pluto were.</p><p>"If it's anything as surprising as Pluto, though, it will be wonderful," he said.</p><h2>'10,000 times harder than reaching Pluto'</h2><p>This flyby was dramatically more difficult than New Horizons' Pluto visit, Stern said.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>"Rendezvousing with something the size of a large, filthy mountain covered in dirt, a billion miles away from Pluto, and honing in on it is about 10,000 times harder than reaching Pluto," Stern said. "That's because it's about 10,000 times smaller. The achievement of getting to it is unbelievable."</p><p>Pinpointing exactly where Ultima Thule would be in space when New Horizons could fly near it required a "two and a half week odyssey" of telescope observations around the world, mission scientist Simon Porter <a href="https://twitter.com/AscendingNode/status/1079080198124064775" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said on Twitter</a>.</p><p>To see Ultima Thule block the light of a distant star - a way to confirm the space rock's precise orbit - the researchers had to fly an airplane-based telescope called SOFIA and deploy dozens of telescopes in Argentina.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/technology/ultima-thule-new-horizons.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times op-ed</a> published on New Year's Eve, Stern described the encounter as "mind-boggling."</p><p>"As you celebrate New Year's Day, cast an eye upward and think for a moment about the amazing things our country and our species can do when we set our minds to it," Stern wrote.</p><h2>Watch live coverage of New Horizons' flyby of Ultima Thule</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Anyone interested in watching Ultima Thule flyby events can tune into live video broadcasts being hosted over the next several days. Segments that feature the first images and <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> results will occur on Wednesday and Thursday.</p><p>JHUAPL, which manages the New Horizons mission, is hosting a <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suite of broadcasts</a> through <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jhuapl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the lab's YouTube channel</a>. Additionally, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-tv-webcast-2016-3">NASA TV</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA Live</a> is mirroring some of the New Horizons coverage, even though the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/government-shutdown-2018">government shutdown</a> has sent many NASA workers home.</p><p>You can watch the main New Horizons events via the NASA Live video player below.</p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-land-pluto-new-horizons-2016-7">NASA just released a video of what it would be like to land on Pluto, and it's breathtaking </a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

NASA just pulled off humanity's farthest-ever visit to a space object - the New Horizons probe's successfully flew by Ultima Thule

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists flew the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/new-horizons">New Horizons</a> probe flew past a space rock called 2014 MU69 on New Year's Day.</li><li>MU69 (nicknamed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/ultima-thule" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ultima Thule</a>) is 4 billion miles from Earth and the most distant object humanity has ever explored.</li><li>NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/spacecraft" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spacecraft</a> recorded hundreds of photos of MU69, and researchers just unveiled the first images of the object.</li><li>The pictures show MU69 is reddish in color and shaped like a snowman.</li><li>Getting all of the flyby data could take about two years, but the resulting information may reveal how planets formed in our <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/solar-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener">solar system</a> some 4.5 billion years ago.</li></ul><p>On New Year's Day, scientists flew NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-powered-spacecraft-nasa-history-2017-3">nuclear-powered</a> New Horizons probe past a mysterious, mountain-size object.</p><p>The space rock is known formally as (486958) 2014 MU69, though more commonly as "Ultima Thule" (a nickname that has garnered some controversy - see editor's note below). It's located more than <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons.php#Current-Position" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4 billion miles</a> from Earth and 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, making MU69 the farthest object humanity has ever explored up-close.</p><p>New Horizons recorded hundreds of photos in a highly choreographed flyby at 32,200 miles per hour, and it came within about <a href="https://twitter.com/KinetXSNAFD/status/1079787075195424768" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2,200 miles</a> of MU69. On Wednesday, researchers giddily revealed the first photographic spoils of their unprecedented mission.</p><p>"It's a snowman," <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/36/alan-stern/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alan Stern</a>, who leads the New Horizons mission, said of the object's shape during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW1rc-D3A5I" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press conference</a> on Wednesday.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Stern explained that MU69 appears to be what's technically called a contact binary, or "two completely separate objects now joined together."</p><p>Jeff Moore, the co-investigator of the New Horizons mission, said during the briefing that the two lobes of MU69 likely smooshed together at a speed so slow that, if it were a vehicle crash, you wouldn't even have to call your car insurance company.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Another NASA scientist referred to is as a bilobate comet that's never journeyed near the sun.</p><p>No one really knew what MU69 looked like until this week. Fuzzy images captured before the flyby led some scientists to guess it was an elongated object, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasas-new-horizons-probe-wakes-to-explore-ultima-thule-2018-6">shaped like a bowling pin or peanut</a>, or perhaps <a href="https://twitter.com/Survivor_JohnS/status/1080344254113697793" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two objects</a> caught in tight orbit with each other.</p><p>The first low-resolution pictures beamed to Earth from New Horizons show MU69 is one object formed from two, and has reddish coloring. Scientists compared the hue to that of Pluto's moon Charon.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>"We can definitely say Ultima Thule is red," Carly Howett, a co-investigator of the New Horizons mission, said during the briefing.</p><p>New Horizons team members are expecting to get the highest-resolution color photos in February, Stern previously told Business Insider. He also said the team would start writing its first scientific paper (based on the data it already has) next week.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>"This is going to revolutionize our knowledge of planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>," Stern said of the flyby.</p><h2>An unprecedented bonus mission beyond Pluto</h2><p>The mission to fly past MU69 was as surprising as it was ambitious.</p><p>When NASA launched New Horizons toward Pluto in 2006, nobody knew MU69 existed. There wasn't even a reliable way to detect the object until astronauts plugged an upgraded camera into the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>New Horizons achieved <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-pluto-first-surface-photos-new-horizons-2015-7">the first-ever visit to Pluto</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-pluto-first-surface-photos-new-horizons-2015-7">in 2015</a>. Once the probe finished that main mission in July 2019, it coasted farther into a zone called the Kuiper Belt. In this cold and icy region, sunlight is about as weak as the light from a full moon on Earth. That far away, frozen leftovers of the solar system's formation called Kuiper Belt Objects, or KBOs, lurk in vast numbers. (Pluto is one of them.)</p><p>MU69 is one of these pristine remnants. It has presumably remained in its distant and icy orbit for billions of years.</p><p>MU69 is "the most primitive object that has yet been seen by any spacecraft," Moore said during the Wednesday briefing. Each of its two lobes were formed within thousands or millions of years of the solar system's formation, he added.</p><p>The unprecedented data acquired by New Horizons could therefore reveal new clues about how the solar system evolved to form planets like Earth.</p><p>"Ultima is the first thing we've been to that is not big enough to have a geological engine like a planet, and also something that's never been warmed greatly by the sun," Stern previously told Business Insider. "It's like a time capsule from 4.5 billion years ago. That's what makes it so special."</p><p>He compared the flyby to an archaeological dig in Egypt.</p><p>"It's like the first time someone opened up the pharaoh's tomb and went inside, and you see what the culture was like 1,000 years ago," he said. "Except this is exploring the dawn of the solar system."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Another analogy: Stern said he thinks of MU69 as a "planetary embryo," since it's a building block of larger planets that never became one.</p><p>"In that sense, it's like a paleontologist finding the fossilized embryo of a dinosaur," Stern said. "It has a very special value."</p><h2>The long wait for more New Horizons data</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>"What is striking home with me is that we can build a spacecraft on Earth, and we send it out billions of miles away from Earth, and it sends us back all this wonderful data that we get to look at and learn more about our world, our solar system," <a href="https://jhuapl.edu/Careers/AliceBowman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alice Bowman</a>, the New Horizons <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/alice-bowman-is-the-mom-of-the-moc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mission operations manager</a>, said during Tuesday's press conference.</p><p>According to Stern, the first images New Horizons captured during the flyby each took two hours to transmit. Then each bit of data, moving at the speed of light as radio waves, took about six hours to reach antennas on Earth.</p><p>Although the first images are now public, it will take much longer to receive the most detailed, full-resolution images due to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-it-takes-so-long-for-new-horizons-to-send-images-2015-7">physical limitations</a> of the New Horizons spacecraft and its location. It may take 20 months to download all of the probe's data.</p><p>Part of the reason it will take so long is because the output of the spacecraft's radio antenna is now about 15 Watts - or one-quarter of a standard light bulb's power - and it's broadcasting from 4 billion miles away.</p><h2>'10,000 times harder than reaching Pluto'</h2><p>This flyby was dramatically more difficult than New Horizons' Pluto visit, Stern said.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>"Rendezvousing with something the size of a large, filthy mountain covered in dirt, a billion miles away from Pluto, and honing in on it is about 10,000 times harder than reaching Pluto," Stern said. "That's because it's about 10,000 times smaller. The achievement of getting to it is unbelievable."</p><p>Pinpointing exactly where MU69 would be in space when New Horizons could fly near it required a "two and a half week odyssey" of telescope observations around the world, mission scientist Simon Porter <a href="https://twitter.com/AscendingNode/status/1079080198124064775" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said on Twitter</a>.</p><p>To see MU69 block the light of a distant star - a way to confirm the space rock's precise orbit - the researchers had to fly an airplane-based telescope called SOFIA and deploy dozens of telescopes in Argentina.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/technology/ultima-thule-new-horizons.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times op-ed</a> published on New Year's Eve, Stern described the encounter as "mind-boggling."</p><p>"As you celebrate New Year's Day, cast an eye upward and think for a moment about the amazing things our country and our species can do when we set our minds to it," Stern wrote.</p><p><em><strong>Editor's note</strong>: After a public campaign, the New Horizons team selected Ultima Thule as a nickname for (486958) 2014 MU69. However, we've de-emphasized it here because the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-named-its-next-new-horizons-target-ultima-thule-mythical-land-nazi-844318" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nazi party used the word "Thule"</a> as a tenet of its ideology.</em></p>

NASA just released the first close-up photos of the farthest object humanity has ever explored - and it looks like a giant red snowman

The maker behind famous <keyword id="213849" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jack-Daniels">Jack Daniels</keyword> bourbon whiskey along with <keyword id="8201110" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ritz-London">Ritz London</keyword> have become the latest victims of cyber attacks.<br /><br />The <keyword id="9211816" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="revil-ransomware">REvil ransomware</keyword> group hit the US wine and spirits giant Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel's.<br /><br />Although Brown-Forman claims have prevented attackers from encrypting their files, hackers said they have access to "1TB corporate data which they have threatened to leak on the Dark Web", reports threatpost.com.<br /><br />According to Jonathan Knudsen, Senior Security Consultant at Synopsys Software Integrity Group, as Brown-Forman reported that they've successfully prevented attackers from encrypting files, while few details have been released yet, "it would appear that they have been working to implement a proactive security strategy". <br /><br />"Times like these illustrate how valuable that proactivity can truly be," Knudsen said in a statement on Wednesday. <br /><br />Jack Daniels or JD is the best-selling premium distilled spirit brand worldwide including in India.<br /><br />Situated in the Lynchburg town, 110 kms southeast of the music city of Nashville, the JD Distillery was established in the 1830s and registered by its owner Jack in 1866, making it the oldest registered distillery in the US.<br /><br />Every year, about 3 lakh people tour the JD distillery. <br /><br />Meanwhile, the Ritz Hotel in London has launched an investigation into a data breach.<br /><br /><div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="77143676" title="Ransomware hits IT services giant — they paid the ransom even after locking hackers out of the system" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div><br />In a series of messages posted to Twitter, the luxury hotel chain said the company was made aware of a "potential data breach within our food and beverage reservation system."<br /><br />"This may have led to the compromise of some of our clients' personal data".<br /><br />According to Knudsen, ransomware is effective and devastating because it allows hackers to sell information back to the people who value it most  the victims. <br /><br />"Businesses can reduce the risk of a catastrophic breach by taking a proactive, security-first stance and following industry best practices in designing and implementing their technology solutions," he said.<br /><br />REVil, also known as Sodin or Sodinokibi, isn't just operating on the old-school ransomware model of "scramble your files and offer to sell you back the decryption key". <br /><br />The hacking group in May got access to secret data belonging to one of the premier media and entertainment law firms in the US representing top-notch celebrities.<br /><br /><div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="75708155" title="Ransomware attack puts Priyanka Chopra, Lady Gaga, Madonna and other celebrities’ data at risk — and REvil hackers are known to follow through on their threats" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div><br />REvil initially demanded $21 million ransom from the law firm, Grubman Shire Meiselas &amp; Sacks, after stealing 756 gigabyte of confidential data that include contracts, nondisclosure agreements, phone numbers and email addresses, and "personal correspondence" of some of the top Hollywood and music stars.<br /><br />The list had names like Priyanka Chopra, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Jessica Simpson, Naomi Campbell, Robert De Niro, Sofia Vergara, Spike Lee, the Osbournes (Ozzy, Sharon and Kelly) and several more.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/nasa-confirms-that-the-dent-in-earths-protective-shield-is-splitting-into-two-and-it-is-getting-bigger/articleshow/77611768.cms">NASA confirms that the dent in Earth’s protective shield is splitting into two as it gets bigger</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/facebook-is-hiring-senior-execs-for-its-digital-wallet-novi-and-its-partnership-with-jio/articleshow/77606649.cms">Facebook is hiring senior execs for its digital wallet Novi and its partnership with Jio</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/microsoft-is-ending-support-for-the-legacy-internet-explorer-but-its-only-going-to-affect-less-than-5-of-online-users/articleshow/77607727.cms">Microsoft is ending support for the legacy Internet Explorer — but it's only going to affect less than 5% of online users</a><br /></strong><br />

Ransomware hits Jack Daniel's owner and Ritz London— investigation ongoing

<br /><br /><ul><li>A star’s ‘death process’ was interrupted by its neighbouring star, according to a new study in Astronomy and Astrophysics.</li><li>Instead of exploding into a <keyword id="517558" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="supernova">supernova</keyword> or turning into a <keyword id="1618218" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="White-dwarf">white dwarf</keyword>, the star’s outer layers now lie scattered and its core is exposed.</li><li>Understanding how this happened can help scientists understand how Sun-like stars die and what the future may hold for our own solar system.</li></ul>Stars have much longer life spans than humans. Our Sun, for instance, is 4.6 billion years old with another 4.5-5.5 billion years to go, before it dies. However, stars still change with age and eventually die. <br /><br />The bigger star of the system HD101584 was doing just that when another star got in the way. Instead of turning into a white dwarf or exploding like a supernova — the star’s outer layers now lie scattered and its core’s been left exposed.<br /><br />
  <div type="image" title="alma2" msid="73975608" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Location of HD101584 in the constellation of Centaurus&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>



<br />"The star system HD101584 is special in the sense that this ‘death process’ was terminated prematurely and dramatically as a nearby low-mass companion star was engulfed by the giant," said <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2002/?lang">Hans Olofsson</a> of the Chalmers University of Technology and the lead author of the study published in <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2002/eso2002a.pdf">Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Death at a funeral<br /></strong>As a star gets older, it swells up into a large and bright red giant. Over time, it’s outer layers would shed, leaving behind just the core — a transformation that turns it into a white dwarf.<br /><br />According to the observations collected by <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/alma/">ALMA</a> and <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/apex/">APEX</a>, the scientists were able to determine that the event was akin to what is called ‘stellar flight’.<br /><br />As this star swelled up, its nearby smaller star got pulled in. Although it didn’t collide with the core to create a supernova, which is what normally happens, the move still triggered an outburst. <br /><br />
  <div type="image" title="alma3" msid="73975620" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Location of HD101584 in the constellation of Centaurus&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>



<br />The deadly blow tore through the star’s gaseous layers, blasted through the previously ejected material to form rings of gas and, bluish and reddish blobs in the nebula.<br /><br />Although the star’s death was premature and far from the way that scientists normally perceive the end of a star’s life — researchers hope that the new information will help them better understand the final evolution of stars like the Sun. <br /><br /><strong>The two-star game<br /></strong>Binary stars are in vogue with the scientific community. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), for instance, is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/two-dead-stars-are-causing-an-eclipse-every-seven-minutes/articleshow/70395559.cms">studying two white dwarf stars</a> 8,000 light-years away from Earth. The pair is noted for being one of the few known sources of gravitational waves in the universe, which is causing them to inch closer and merge. <br /><br />Another pair of stars are dragging <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/two-dead-stars-are-dancing-around-each-other-proving-einsteins-theory-right/articleshow/73794871.cms">the fabric of space and time along with them</a>. According to Albert Einstein, that’s exactly what happens when the principle of general relativity is at play and the ‘frame-dragging’ effect occurs. <br /><br />Binary systems are key to understanding how the universe functions and what the future holds with respect to Earth and its Sun. <br /><br />"Currently, we can describe the death processes common to many Sun-like stars, but we cannot explain why or exactly how they happen. HD101584 gives us important clues to solve this puzzle since it is currently in a short transitional phase between better studied evolutionary stages," said the study’s co-author <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2002/?lang">Sofia Ramstedt</a> from the Uppsala University. <br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/two-dead-stars-are-dancing-around-each-other-proving-einsteins-theory-right/articleshow/73794871.cms">Two dead stars are dancing around each other proving Einstein's theory right</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/two-dead-stars-are-causing-an-eclipse-every-seven-minutes/articleshow/70395559.cms">Two dead stars are causing an eclipse every seven minutes</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/nasas-planet-hunter-uncovers-its-first-world-with-two-stars-1300-light-years-away/articleshow/73133158.cms">NASA's planet-hunter uncovers its first world with two stars 1,300 light-years away</a></strong><br />

A small star blew up a bigger star's funeral by exploding — but still missing the bullseye

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>For the first time in four decades, a team of researchers <a href="http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2015/08/aa26377-15.pdf">has found</a> atomic oxygen lingering in the upper Martian atmosphere.</p><p>But don't get carried away too quickly - <em>atomic</em> oxygen is very different from the stuff we breathe.</p><p>But it does affect how easily gases escape the Martian atmosphere, so these measurements will likely help uncover more about why and how the protective gases enveloping Mars eroded over the last few billions of years.</p><p>If Mars ever supported life, those gases may have played a critical role.</p><p>On Earth, our atmosphere contains the air we breathe, protects us from the Sun's harmful radiation, enables the cycling of water, and keeps the Sun's heat from escaping back into space.</p><p>Scientists believe that billions of years ago, Mars also had a thick atmosphere capable of sustaining liquid water and even life. But over time, the planet evolved to become cold and barren.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NASAA</span></p><p class="caption">Mars today is a cold, barren desert, but scientists think it was once a warm and wet planet. The change may have been caused by the loss of an early atmosphere driven into space by the sun's solar wind.</p></div><p></p></div></div>In 2015, scientists came to the conclusion that around 3.5 billion years ago, Mars mysteriously lost its magnetic field, allowing huge bursts of energy from the Sun to gradually strip it of its atmosphere. This stripping is still happening today.</p><p>And this is where atomic oxygen comes into play.</p><p>Atomic oxygen is made up of just one atom, unlike the oxygen we breathe (O2), which is made up of two. Because it reacts easily with other substances, atomic oxygen doesn't stick around for very long on Earth's surface. The reason it's so prevalent in space is because of an excess of ultraviolet radiation: All that UV is constantly breaking apart O2 to create atomic oxygen.</p><p>Because of this, most of the atomic oxygen in the atmosphere resides in the top layer, where atoms and molecules escape into space. Scientists believe it is a key factor in determining how easily gases break free. Measuring the amount of atomic oxygen in Mars' atmosphere will give scientists more clues about this puzzling erosion.</p><p>The last time atomic oxygen was detected in the Martian atmosphere was in the 1970s, during NASA's Viking and Mariner missions. This time around, researchers used an observatory called the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).</p><p>SOFIA, which flies between 37,000 and 45,000 feet above sea level, actually measured about half the amount of atomic oxygen that the researchers were expecting - perhaps due to variations in the atmosphere. The researchers plan to continue using SOFIA to get a clearer picture of the Martian atmosphere and compare their latest findings with measurements on other regions of the Red Planet.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/argyre-mars-crater-birthplace-of-alien-life-nasa-2016-4">This enormous crater could be the birthplace of alien life on Mars</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hiZm5yMjE6WhnFGcDz3pn1kpKsr_ZhCW" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "sofia nasa" and got 9 results

Stars are being born next to the Milky Way's supermassive black hole in a stunning new image by the world's largest airborne telescope

Prabhjote Gill

NASA used a Boeing 747 rigged with a massive telescope to discover water on the moon — take a look at SOFIA

Thomas Pallini

The moon is sprinkled with patches of frozen water, NASA scientists discovered. Mining it may be crucial for travel to Mars and beyond.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

NASA will share an 'exciting new discovery' about the moon on Monday. Listen to the announcement live.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Susie N…

NASA just pulled off humanity's farthest-ever visit to a space object - the New Horizons probe's successfully flew by Ultima Thule

Dave Mosher,Rebecca Harrington

NASA just released the first close-up photos of the farthest object humanity has ever explored - and it looks like a giant red snowman

Dave Mosher

Ransomware hits Jack Daniel's owner and Ritz London— investigation ongoing

IANS

A small star blew up a bigger star's funeral by exploding — but still missing the bullseye

Prabhjote Gill

Scientists have detected oxygen on Mars - and it could reveal something fascinating about the planet's past

Ali Sundermier

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides