Showing posts with label space science. Show all posts
Secrets of the Kuiper Belt to be revealed: New Horizons brings mysterious object from the early solar system into focus
It took New Horizons 10 years and 3 billion miles to reach Pluto - and now it has it's sights set on a new target.
The probe is currently exploring Kuiper Belt, a chilly expanse that holds trillions of mysterious objects leftover from the early solar system.
Today, Nasa released an image it took of 1994 JR1, a 90-mile-wide (145-kilometer-wide) Kuiper Belt object which orbits more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km) from the sun. Warming up for a possible extended mission as it speeds through deep space, New Horizons has now twice observed 1994 JR1.
The image was taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (Lorri) on April 7-8 from a distance of about 69 million miles (111 million km). It shatters New Horizons' own record for the closest-ever views of this KBO in November 2015, when New Horizons detected JR1 from 170 million miles (280 million km) away.
Distant blue galaxy may reveal Earth’s birth secrets
A small blue galaxy far, far away might shed light on the origins of our universe. A research team from Indiana University reports that the galaxy, dubbed Leoncino, or "little lion," holds the lowest level of metals or heavy chemical elements ever seen in any gravitationally-bound system of stars.
The astronomers say this galaxy, located about 30 million light-years from Earth in the Leo Minor constellation, could reveal details about the Big Bang itself. The study was just published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/small-blue-galaxy-big-bang/
