The James Webb Space Telescope, an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, South America. Following launch and separation from the rocket, Webb's mission operations center in Baltimore, the United States, confirmed the spacecraft deployed its solar array and is in good condition, marking the launch a success.
The James Webb Space Telescope, a major space observatory often presented as the successor to the very successful NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe.
Dec 26, 2021
NASA's DART Spacecraft Captures Its First Images
Just two weeks after launch, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has returned its first images from space.
DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid's motion in space through kinetic impact.
Its target is the binary, near-Earth asteroid system Didymos, composed of the roughly 780-m- (2,560-foot) diameter Didymos and the smaller, approximately 160-m- (530-foot) size moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos. DART will impact Dimorphos to change its orbit within the binary system.
DART was launched in November 2021, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the United States.
World's Oldest Family Tree Created Using DNA
Scientists have compiled the world's oldest family tree from human bones interred at a 5,700-year-old tomb in the Cotswolds, UK.
Analysis of DNA from the tomb's occupants revealed the people buried there were from five continuous generations of one extended family.
Most of those found in the tomb were descended from four women who all had children with the same man.
The right to use the site was based on descent from one man.
But people were buried in different parts of the tomb based on the first-generation matriarch they were descended from.
This suggests that the first-generation women held a socially significant place in the memories of this community. The Neolithic tomb, or "cairn", at Hazleton North in Gloucestershire has two L-shaped chambers, one facing north and the other south.
Dec 25, 2021
Scientists Discover New Part of the Body
Scientists uncovered a part of the body that had never been described before: a deep layer of muscle in the masseter, which raises the lower jaw and is critical for chewing.
Modern anatomy textbooks describe the masseter muscle as having two layers, one deep and one superficial. "However, a few historical texts mention the possible existence of a third layer as well, but they are extremely inconsistent as to its position," the study authors wrote in a new report. So the team decided to check whether the prominent jaw muscle might have a hidden, super-deep layer, as the historical texts suggest.
International Astronomers in Australia Capture Black Hole Eruption
Astronomers from Curtin University, as part of an international team, have produced the most comprehensive images of the nearest active black hole to earth.
The discovery, published in the Nature Astronomy journal and released to the public, took a deep dive into the black hole at the center of the galaxy Centaurus A, about 12 million light-years away.
Despite being galaxies far away, the erupting black hole extended across a length equal to 16 moons placed side by side in the night sky. However, it is not visible to the naked eye.
Dec 23, 2021
Astronomers Find at Least 70 Free-Floating Exoplanets in Nearby Star-Forming Region
Using observations and archival data from several space- and ground-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered a rich population of free-floating planets — between 70 and 170 such objects — in a nearby region of the Milky Way known as the Upper Scorpius young stellar association. This is the largest sample of such planets found in a single group and it nearly doubles the number known over the entire sky.
To date, most exoplanets have been detected through modulations induced in their host stars. As such, the vast majority of known exoplanets are gravitationally bound to stars.
These ultra-faint objects are less than about 13 Jupiter masses and are not bound to a star or brown dwarf but rather wander among them.
Dec 22, 2021
Clouds of Venus May Be More Habitable than Previously Thought
Possible lifeforms in the Venusian clouds could be setting off a cascade of chemical reactions that is making the environment much more habitable.
Venus is often called Earth's sister planet because of its similar mass and size to Earth. Yet, owing, in part, to the greenhouse effect from its massive atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide, Venusian surface temperature is higher than 700 K (427 degrees Celsius, 800 degrees Fahrenheit) — too hot for life of any kind.
The surface of Venus is therefore a complete contrast to Earth's temperate surface and rich surface biosphere.
Hayabusa-2 Sample Reveals New Information about Asteroid Ryugu
An analysis of the Hayabusa-2 sample of material returned to Earth from the carbon-rich, diamond-shaped, near-Earth asteroid Ryugu shows that the material is very dark, reflecting only 2% of light, porous and similar to clay, contains carbonates (a fraction of them enriched in iron) as well as compounds rich in nitrogen and hydrogen.
Ryugu, also known as 1999 JU3, is a near-Earth C-type asteroid. Its name refers to Ryūgū (Dragon Palace), a magical underwater palace in a Japanese folktale.
The asteroid was discovered in May 1999 by astronomers with the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research.
It measures approximately 900 m (0.56 miles) in diameter and orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.96-1.41 astronomical units (AU) once every 474 days.
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