astronomy
Washington (AFP) - Just a single, unguarded glance at a solar eclipse can result in a lifetime of vision loss, eye health experts warn. On Monday, tens of millions of spectators across Mexico, the United States and Canada will witness the Moon completely obscure the Sun's light, a rare celestial spectacle that won't be visible for most of North America again until 2044. Medical literature is teeming with examples of people who suffered damage to their retinas -- the layer of light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye -- and health professionals are offering advice on how to avoid becoming t...
AFP
New York (AFP) - Six US prisoners have sued authorities to be allowed to see the year's biggest astronomic event, a total solar eclipse on April 8. The inmates argued in a court filing that their right to religious freedom would be violated if the New York state prison service upheld a planned penitentiary lockdown during the eclipse. "Eclipses, like the one on April 8, are recognized by various religions as special events that warrant gathering, celebration, worship, and prayer," said the submission lodged on March 29. "(The inmates) have each expressed a sincerely held religious belief that...
AFP
By Daniel STUBLEN Washington (AFP) - Des millions d'Américains pourront observer lundi une éclipse totale, un phénomène rare qui attirera de nombreux touristes le long d'une diagonale traversant les Etats-Unis du sud au nord-est. A Burlington, dans l'Etat du Vermont, dans le nord-est du pays, le Soleil sera complètement masqué juste avant 15H30 (19H30 GMT) le 8 avril. De nombreux hôtels affichent complet depuis des mois. Et les prix des quelques chambres restantes, d'habitude environ 150 dollars la nuit, atteignent entre 600 et 700 dollars le jour de l'événement astronomique le plus important ...
AFP (Français)
Washington (AFP) - US communities along the path of the April 8 total solar eclipse are preparing for the year's biggest astronomic event, with millions of visitors expected to brighten local economies -- and snarl up logistics. Near the US-Canada border in Burlington, Vermont, which is set to experience the totality just before 3:30 pm (1930 GMT), many hotels have been sold out for months. The few remaining rooms, which typically go for around $150 a night, show online prices of $600-$700 for the night of the eclipse. "I don't know that we'll have anything quite like this again," Jeff Lawson,...
AFP
In Toulouse, France, the Cité de l'Espace is launching a new immersive experience: Lune Xplorer, where you can take a seat in a rocket simulator. You can climb aboard a spaceship similar to the one that will soon take man back to the Moon. Every detail is realistic, including the number of passengers: four per capsule. The simulator is in fact a centrifuge that reproduces all the effects of acceleration. "We were really caught up, glued to the seat... As soon as we moved our heads we really lost north and south, but it was really cool," said one visitor. NASA’s new climate satellite will offer...
Euronews (English)
The object is a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day, astronomers say. The record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The black hole powering this distant quasar is more than 17 billion times more immense than our sun, an Australian-led team reported Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. While the quasar resembles a mere dot in images, scientists envision a ferocious place. The rotating disk around the quasar's black hole — the luminous swirling gas and other matter from gobbled-up stars — is like a ...
Euronews (English)
Washington (AFP) - In a hushed room of a museum in Washington, cameras and cell phones focus on a tiny piece of rock, no larger than a piece of gravel. The fragment might seem insignificant, but it is a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu, which scientists are studying in the hope of discovering if asteroids actually brought the building blocks of life -- carbon and water -- to Earth. Exhibited to the public on Friday for the first time at the Smithsonian in the US capital, the tiny stone is just visible inside its small capsule. "This asteroid, now we know, has water crystals and carbon, tw...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - For the first time ever, a NASA probe is set to journey to an object composed not of rock, ice, or gas, but metal: the asteroid Psyche. By studying this space oddity, scientists hope to learn more about the inner cores of rocky planets such as our own -- or, potentially catalog a previously unknown class of cosmic body. Here are some big numbers and fun facts to dazzle your friends with about the mission. $10 quadrillion - If Psyche were mineable, its iron, nickel and gold deposits could be worth an eye-watering $10,000 quadrillion (that's $10,000,000,000,000,000,000), acc...
AFP
Houston (AFP) - A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. The discovery follows a seven-year-round-trip to the distant rock as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, which dropped off its precious payload in the Utah desert last month for painstaking scientific analysis. "This is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at a press event at the Johnson Space Center in Houst...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - NASA has succeeded in re-establishing full contact with Voyager 2 by using its highest-power transmitter to send an "interstellar shout" that righted the distant probe's antenna orientation, the space agency said Friday. Launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets and serve as a beacon of humanity to the wider universe, it is currently more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from our planet -- well beyond the solar system. A series of planned commands sent to the spaceship on July 21 mistakenly caused the antenna to point two degrees away from Earth, comprom...
AFP
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