Space

What happens to a star when it gets sucked into a black hole? No one knew for sure until Einstein said that he did! The physicist's Theory of Relativity could be used to encompass the physics of such an event. To be more specific, such an occurrence would involve a star passing through the gravitational field of a black hole.

The binary asteroids orbiting each other made their closest approach to Earth on June 21, 2018. The binary nature of the asteroid was confirmed by radar observations, by NASA’s Goldstone Solar system radar, Arecibo Observatory, and Green Bank Observatory. 2017 YE5 is already on its way to get farther from Earth involving in the asteroid belt. It will pass Mars on July 30, 2018. The Earth will witness 2017 YE5 again in 2037, but with a larger distance of 0.2 AU (astronomical unit).

The upcoming missions to further explore and investigate the Red Planet for habitability are informed by findings that there may be water when the new spacecraft arrives there.

Jupiter, along with its set of satellites and atmosphere, is a pint-sized system within our solar system. The moon is a floating asteroid in space, which is captured by the gravitational pull of the planet.

When you think about astronomy, one thing may come to mind: multi-spectral. This is because imaging, many of the cosmic bodies far away from Earth, relies on light data that goes beyond the visual spectrum.

Astronomers and astrophysicists have known, for over a century, that the Earth is being bombarded with cosmic rays. However, without advanced equipment and technique, it could not be said for sure from where these rays emanated.

The next total lunar eclipse will occur at the end of this month, in 2018, according to bodies such as NASA. This event, while not to be the only one to occur this century, may be the most impressive one in the lifetime of most people alive today. This occurrence is also predicted to be accompanied by the ‘blood moon’ phenomenon. Finally, this eclipse will be visible from most of Earth for about four hours per time zone.

A few years ago, NASA’s mission to Saturn’s orbit, established that the planet’s moon, Enceladus, had a global ocean in its midst. Observations from this space operation indicated that the interiors of the moon were, in fact, not frozen.

The space stations of the immediate future are going to have to be clean. This is because they will represent the first wave of manned scientific missions to their destinations (which may include the surface of Mars). Therefore, their crews will need to avoid contamination at all costs, so that the samples of extra-terrestrial material remain pristine. This process will preserve their value to researchers and engineers after they are collected.

Thanks to astrophysics and other similar disciplines, we now think of our galaxy as billions of years old. However, it never occurred to the same scientists that this may have taken its toll on the Milky Way.

Europa, a moon that orbits Jupiter, looks like an inert icy ball from the outside. However, many astronomers theorize that there is an Earth-like ocean underneath the crust. This crust could also be hiding energy sources. Therefore, conditions for life may indeed exist on Europa!

Some scientists are very interested in knowing what would happen if the sun goes dark for good. This is reasonable enough as nothing on our planet can live without this important star. For some time, astronomers were doubtful about what would happen to the sun at the end of its life. The death-throes observed in other stars were seen as unlikely to apply to it based on its size.