-
The colossal red supergiant VY of the Big Dog, visible to the naked eye a couple of centuries ago, and then disappeared from sight, plunged into a cloud of dust
This behavior suggests that the star is approaching the end of its life and in the next 100 thousand years it will either explode as a supernova or directly collapse into a black hole. The huge red supergiant VY of the Big Dog is located at a distance of about 3.9 thousand light-years from Earth.…
-
What happens if the comet with the largest core crashes into the Earth?
Recently, scientists have discovered a comet with the largest nucleus in history. It is constantly flying towards the Sun and by 2031 it will reach the orbit of Saturn. It turned out to be Bernardinelli – Bernstein ‘s C/2014 UN271 . The diameter of its core is about 128 km, which is three times the…
-
A new super-Earth has been discovered around the nearest star
A new super-Earth has been discovered around the nearest star The new exoplanet, dubbed GJ 740 b, is located about 36 light-years from Earth. This super-earth is at least 2.96 times more massive than our planet. Recall that the “super-earth” is called an exoplanet having a mass exceeding the mass of the Earth, but significantly…
-
A planet with an atmosphere close to Earth has been found
International researchers have discovered the unique planet Gliese 486b in the constellation Virgo. The planet has a mass 2.8 times the mass of the Earth, it has an atmosphere whose composition can be studied. Gliese 486b orbits a local red dwarf at a distance of 2.5 million kilometers. At the same time, it is constantly…
-
Astronomers have observed the explosion of a white dwarf for the first time
In July 2020, a group of European scientists using the German eROSITA X—ray telescope recorded an unusually bright explosion of a white dwarf – it generated a huge fireball with a temperature 60 times higher than the temperature of the Sun. White dwarfs are extremely dense stars that have lost a significant part of the…
-
Mars Probe InSight mission to end this year due to power problems
The mission of the InSight Mars probe will end this year due to power problems, said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s Directorate for Scientific Missions. “NASA’s InSight Mars lander is gradually losing power. It is expected that he will finish conducting scientific research this summer. By December, experts expect that the device will stop working,…
-
If the Earth was turned to the Sun with only one side, would we be able to exist?
If the Earth were under the action of tidal capture, then there would be intense heat on one side, and intense cold on the other. In either case, the existence of higher forms of protein life would be impossible. Nevertheless, in the twilight zone, as shown in another answer, the temperature would be average, i.e.…
-
The danger of space debris
Space debris falls to Earth from time to time. Large objects that move in sufficiently low orbits may eventually enter the atmosphere. Their speed slows down, they fall and partially burn up. And already individual fragments reach the surface of our planet. So Lottie Williams suffered from the wreckage of one of the stages of…
-
Astronomers have discovered four new brown dwarfs
Despite the fact that brown dwarfs emit very little energy compared to ordinary stars, astronomers have managed to identify quite a few such objects to date. However, their findings in star systems are still rare. The more interesting is the recent discovery made by a team of European astronomers. They managed to find four previously…
-
A magnitude 5 earthquake has occurred on Mars
On May 5, the most powerful Mars earthquake was recorded on Mars for all the years of observations. Its magnitude reached 5 points on the Richter scale, which became a record after a push in August last year with an amplitude of 4.2 points. A little later we will post an audio recording of the…
