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Record Size Black Holes Discovered In Monster Galaxies

That artist rendition above sure is freaky eh? Well probably not yet until you hear this: University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date ‑- two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything from your north face fleeceto even light, within a region [...]

Voyager Sending Back Data From New Region Edge of Solar System

Over the past year, NASA’s Voyager 1 has been sending back data from outside our solar system where it now resides. The spacecraft is about 11 billion miles from the sun, and not yet in interstellar space. “Voyager tells us now that we’re in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around [...]

Solar System Birth Showing Disk Containing Water For Thousands of Oceans

Keeping on the topic of possible future life in the universe, we see more research that is looking back into the past of solar system formation. This time it is a burgeoning disc of in a nearby solar system that is known to contain enough water to fill thousands of oceans. Giving scientists a look [...]

“Late Heavy Bombardment” Being Observed In Nearby Solar System?

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope is watching a comet downpour in nearby solar system. Why this is significant is that scientists believe it resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the “Late Heavy Bombardment,” which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth. (Entirely theoretical of course) [...]

Second Monster Black Hole Found In Nearby Galaxy

NASA’s Swift satellite and the Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a second supersized black hole at the heart of an unusual nearby galaxy. What is unusual is that the galaxy is already known to be housing another monster black hole. They reside about 11,000 light years away from each other and 425 million light years [...]

‘MESSENGER’ Sends Back First Orbital Images of Mercury

This is the very first set of images obtained from an orbiter of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. Also, obtained: a very bad sunburn. On March 29, 2011, at 5:20 am EDT, MESSENGER captured a historic image of Mercury. The image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the [...]

Saw the Space Shuttle Discovery Final Launch (sort of)

Just happened to be down in Florida this week, and was about 20 miles down the beach from Cape Canaveral. Upon realizing a launch would happen while I was there I got to walk down a few miles to take a gander at the final launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. I must say I [...]

Solar Flare Disrupts Communications

We just talked about these huge solar flares the other day. Now we actually have real world instances of it disrupting communications. Apparently, the flare has already disrupted some ground communications on Earth, said University of Colorado Boulder Professor Daniel Baker, an internationally known space weather expert. Classified as a Class X flare, the Feb. [...]

We’re All Gonna Die: Solar Flares Coming To Earth

It sounds scary doesn’t it? Well there isn’t really any danger to us so there is little to worry about outside of inconvenience to a few. No burning people in the streets. No lava pools in your backyards. No boiling swimming pools. It sounds much worse than what really happens. Radiation from the largest solar [...]

Things That Will Kill Us: Space Junk

with all the stuff floating around the Earth it is no surprise that many feel they will be a great risk to not only rockets and spacecraft, but maybe to us on the ground as well. Space junk clutters the orbit around Earth that includes disabled satellites, lost space tools, and discarded rocket test stages. [...]