astronomie
Niagara Falls (United States) (AFP) - Eclipse mania gripped North America on Monday as a breathtaking celestial spectacle captivated tens of millions of people, offering a rare blend of scientific interest, commercial opportunity and daytime partying. The Moon's shadow plunged the Pacific coast of Mexico into total darkness at 11:07 am local time (1807 GMT) then swept across the United States at supersonic speed, returning to the ocean over Canada's Atlantic coast just under an hour-and-a-half after landfall. Festivals, viewing parties and even mass weddings took place along the eclipse's "pat...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - When a rare total solar eclipse sweeps across North America on Monday, scientists will be able to gather invaluable data on everything from the Sun's atmosphere to strange animal behaviors -- and even possible effects on humans. It comes with the Sun near the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, setting the stage for a breathtaking display: The corona will glow spectacularly from the Moon's silhouette along the path of totality, a corridor stretching from Mexico to Canada via the United States. Total solar eclipses offer "incredible scientific opportunities," NASA Deputy Adminis...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - When a rare total solar eclipse sweeps across North America on April 8, scientists will be able to gather invaluable data on everything from the Sun's atmosphere to strange animal behaviors -- and even possible effects on humans. It comes with the Sun near the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, setting the stage for a breathtaking display: The corona will glow spectacularly from the Moon's silhouette along the path of totality, a corridor stretching from Mexico to Canada via the United States. Total solar eclipses offer "incredible scientific opportunities," NASA Deputy Admini...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - After a seven-year wait, NASA scientists on Tuesday finally pried open a space probe carrying the largest asteroid samples ever brought back to Earth, finding black debris. Researchers "found black dust and debris on the avionics deck of the Osiris-Rex science canister when the initial lid was removed today," the US space agency said, though without specifying whether they definitely belonged to the asteroid. Scientists are eagerly awaiting researching the bulk of the sample, which will require "intricate disassembly" of the probe. Osiris-Rex launched in 2016, landing on the...
AFP
Dugway (United States) (AFP) - A seven-year space voyage came to its climactic end Sunday when a NASA capsule landed in the desert in the US state of Utah, carrying to Earth the largest asteroid samples ever collected. Scientists have high hopes for the sample, saying it will provide a better understanding of the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable. When they learned that the capsule's main parachute had deployed, "I literally broke into tears," the Osiris-Rex mission's principal investigator Dante Lauretta told a press conference. "That was the moment I knew we made ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - NASA's first mission to retrieve an asteroid sample and return it to US soil is expected to reach a perilous finale on Sunday with a descent into the Utah desert. Scientists hope the material -- possibly the most ever retrieved by such a mission -- will provide humanity with a better understanding on the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable. The US space probe OSIRIS-REx, launched in 2016, scooped up the sample from an asteroid called Bennu almost three years ago. Touchdown is scheduled for Sunday at around 9:00 am local time (1500 GMT), at a military...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - An international team of astronomers on Monday announced the discovery of a large asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Earth, creating a small chance far in the future of a catastrophic collision. The 1.5 kilometer- (0.9 mile-) wide asteroid, named 2022 AP7, was discovered in area notoriously difficult to spot objects due to the glare from the Sun. It was found along with two other near-Earth asteroids using a high-tech instrument on the Victor M. Blanco telescope in Chile that was originally developed to study dark matter. "2022 AP7 crosses Earth’s orbit, which makes it a p...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Scientists who study Mars on Thursday revealed the remarkable Christmas gift they received from the planet last year. On December 24, 2021, a meteorite hit Mars' surface, triggering magnitude 4 tremors, which were detected by NASA's InSight spacecraft -- which landed on the planet four years ago -- some 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) away. The true origin of this so-called marsquake was only confirmed when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was able to take a picture of the newly formed crater created by the hit when it flew over the impact site less than 24 hours later...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - The James Webb Space Telescope captured the iconic "Pillars of Creation," huge structures of gas and dust teeming with stars, NASA said Wednesday, and the image is as majestic as one could hope. The twinkling of thousands of stars illuminates the telescope's first shot of the gigantic gold, copper and brown columns standing in the midst of the cosmos. At the ends of several pillars are bright red, lava-like spots. "These are ejections from stars that are still forming," only a few hundred thousand years old, NASA said in a statement. These "young stars periodically shoot out...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - At just 33 years old, Caltech assistant professor Katie Bouman is already a veteran of two major scientific discoveries. The expert in computational imaging -- developing algorithms to observe distant phenomena -- helped create the program that led to the release of the first image of a black hole in a distant galaxy in 2019. She quickly became something of a global science superstar, and was invited to testify before Congress about her work. Now, she has again played a key role in the creation of a groundbreaking image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our own ...
AFP
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