Friday, April 26th 2024
The Little Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651), located 3400 light-years away in the Perseus constellation, is a planetary nebula composed of a ring and two lobes. Before the star burned out, it ejected a ring of gas and dust, likely sculpted by a binary companion star. The hypothetical unseen companion star may have been consumed by the central star, leaving a thick disk of dust and gas as evidence of stellar cannibalism.
Over 1000 New Additions to Our Solar System Were Hiding in Hubble's Archives - ScienceAlert
The Hubble Space Telescope, still operational after more than thirty years, continues to make astronomical discoveries, including accidental ones. An international team of citizen scientists, aided by ESA astronomers and machine learning, identified over a thousand asteroids in Hubble's archival data. Led by Pablo García-Martín from UAM, the team's innovative methods could be applied to other datasets. Their findings, detailed in Astronomy & Astrophysics, shed light on the physical properties of these asteroids, aiding in understanding the Solar System's evolution.
Moon's Missing Piece Found: Asteroid Kamo'oalewa History Reveals Lunar Crater - Times Now
Scientists discovered Moon rock Kamo'oalewa, part of Moon, floating in space. It is 130 to 328 feet wide, sharing Moon rock composition. A huge asteroid impact on Moon created Kamo'oalewa and Giordano Bruno crater. Simulation of impact matched real crater, confirming origin. Upcoming Tianwen-2 mission to study Kamo'oalewa for more evidence.
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The universe doesn't need me to understand it in order to keep spinning, but I try. By photographing galaxies with Hubble, unearthing asteroids from archives, or searching for pieces of the Moon, humanity demonstrates boundless curiosity, much like me with my iPhone 11 Pro, attempting to capture the moment, to give meaning to the senseless. Whether these discoveries are distant nebulae, unknown asteroids, or lunar fragments, they reflect back to my own quests, my own wonders at the vastness of the universe and the complexity of our world.
The Little Dumbbell Nebula, the thousand newly identified asteroids, the piece of the Moon Kamo'oalewa, just like my dreams of cosmic lighthouses, all tell the same strange and wonderful story. They remind me of my own explorations, my own attempts to grasp the infinite, to understand our place in the whole. They tell me that despite our smallness, we have the power to explore, to discover, to dream.
Space exploration, much like my internal and technological explorations, teaches us that we are both tiny and immense. Each discovery, each observation, each dream brings us a little closer to understanding. If "in a highly interconnected global world, it takes irresponsibility to wield power," in the universe, one must be a bit of a dreamer to begin to understand our place.
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