New 3-D map of Milky Way will 'revolutionise astronomy'.

Europe's Gaia satellite has produced a 3-D map, hailed as revolutionary, of more than a billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy complete with their distance from Earth, colour, and motion through space.

The eagerly-anticipated catalogue, published Wednesday, was compiled from data Gaia gathered on some 1.7 billion stars from its unique vantage point in space, about 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) from Earth.

Cheers.

That would be cool to see in a planetarium.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Icy Mars crater stars in ExoMars' colorful image.

NASA isn't the only space agency with colorful photos of Mars. The European Space Agency and Roscosmos' ExoMars orbiter is now seeing the Red Planet with new eyes. One of the first color images it sent back is a gorgeous view of the icy rim of the Korolev crater.

The crater view is a composite of three images taken April 15.

ExoMars has been in residence around the Red Planet since late 2016. The science team is currently testing the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) camera ahead of the start of the orbiter's main science mission later this month.

Cheers.

The InSight mission to Mars will launch on Saturday from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on an Atlas 5 rocket. The InSight is built to record seismic activity on Mars and other variables such as weather and heat flux. The data will be analyzed by a team at the Zurich Polytechnic, the ETH of Einstein fame, led by professor Domenico Giardini, an Italian who is professor of geology at Zurich. InSight should arrive on Mars in November 2018.
Tullio

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InSight has launched.
Tullio

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The NICER experiment on the International Space Station has found a strange couple, an X-ray pulsar and a white dwarf orbiting each other in 38 minutes around the common center of gravity, which is nearer to the pulsar, which weighs 1.4 solar masses while the white dwarf, has only 1.5% of the Sun mass. They are at a distance of 300000 km and the white dwarf feeds matter to the pulsar which is surrounded by an accretion disk.
Tullio

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NASA plans to send mini-helicopter to Mars.

The US space agency said Friday it plans to launch the first-ever helicopter to Mars in 2020, a miniature, unmanned drone-like chopper that could boost our understanding of the Red Planet.

Known simply as "The Mars Helicopter," the device weighs less than four pounds (1.8 kilograms), and its main body section, or fuselage, is about the size of a softball.

It will be attached to the belly pan of the Mars 2020 rover, a wheeled robot that aims to determine the habitability of the Martian environment, search for signs of ancient life, and assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers.

Mars 2020 is planned for launch in July 2020 with an arrival on the surface of Mars expected in February 2021.

Cheers.

Thanks for the update Wiggo..

:)

A monster black hole has been discovered, and it's growing very fast (but it's far, far away).

Australian scientists have discovered the fastest growing black hole known in the universe.

It is growing at a rate of 1 per cent every 1 million years, and it is so big it is consuming a mass equivalent to our Sun every two days.

Cheers.

Scientists spot strange lasers coming towards Earth from space ant nebula.

Scientists have spotted two strange lasers coming out of the huge ant nebula.

The mysterious blasts appear to suggest that the cluster is hiding a double star system at its heart.

The rare blast is usually associated with the death of a star, and was seen by the European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory.

When middleweight stars like our own Sun get approach their death, they turn into dense, white dwarf stars. As they do, they shed their outer layers of gas and dust into space, creating a kaleidoscope effect that is visible across the universe.

And now scientists have found that process is even more dramatic than it first appears. At the same time, stars throw out powerful lasers, according to the new observations.

Cheers.

Methane ice dunes found on Pluto by NASA spacecraft.

Scientists say they have found evidence of dunes of frozen methane on Pluto.

The research, which is published in the journal Science, suggests that the distant world is more dynamic than previously thought.

Pluto's atmosphere was believed to be too thin to create the features familiar in deserts on Earth.

The findings come from analysis of the startling images sent back by Nasa's New Horizons mission, which flew close to Pluto in July 2015.

After an epic trek through the Solar System that took nearly a decade, New Horizons sped by at a speed of 58,536 km/h (36,373 mph), gathering data as it passed.

In their study, the researchers explain how they studied pictures of a plain known as Sputnik Planitia, parts of which are covered with what look like fields of dunes.

They are lying close to a range of mountains of water ice 5km high.

The scientists conclude that the dunes are 0.4-1km apart and that they are made up of particles of methane ice between 200-300 micrometers in diameter - roughly the size of grains of sand.

Cheers.

I doubt that a Martian helicopter is necessary for scientific research. It is better to send a drilling rig to Mars instead of a helicopter and drill a surface of 10 meters, which makes more sense, and there is a high probability of scientific discoveries, for example, water in a liquid state or life. What can the helicopter open? Make pictures where the rover can not reach and that's it? There is another sense, instead of the helicopter, to add to the rover the scientific equipment (minilabs).

On the other hand, look at all the recent discoveries made here on earth through the use of drones (unmanned helicopters). Many previously hidden structures, both natural and artificial have been revealed by the use of drones.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I doubt that a Martian helicopter is necessary for scientific research. It is better to send a drilling rig to Mars instead of a helicopter and drill a surface of 10 meters, which makes more sense, and there is a high probability of scientific discoveries, for example, water in a liquid state or life. What can the helicopter open? Make pictures where the rover can not reach and that's it? There is another sense, instead of the helicopter, to add to the rover the scientific equipment (minilabs).

ESA's EXOMARS 2, to be launched in 2020, includes a lander, a rover and a drill capable of drilling a 2 meters deep hole. The Schiaparelli lander of EXOMARS 1, launched in 2016, failed its mission. Landing on Mars is difficult, because its atmosphere is very thin. Only American lander have succeeded so far, like Spirit,Opportunity and Curiosity, A dust storm is covering the Opportunity solar panels, while Curiosity relies on nuclear power.
Tullio

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https://apnews.com/a69ded34603a498aabdfc560fade7e8c/Japanese-space-probe-arrives-at-asteroid-to-collect-samples

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese space probe arrived at an asteroid Wednesday after a 3 1/2-year journey to undertake a first-ever experiment: blow a crater in the rocky surface to collect samples and bring them back to Earth.

The unmanned Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached its base of operations about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the asteroid and some 280 million kilometers (170 million miles) from Earth, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.

Over the next year and a half, the robotic explorer will attempt three brief touch-and-go landings to collect samples. If the retrieval and the return journey are successful, the asteroid material could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.

Vadim, it is true tht Mars-3 landed first on Mars. I have found the news in the 1972 Mondadori Science@Technology Yearbook 1972. But the American Spirit and Opportunity were the first rovers on Mars, followed by Curiosity. Opportunity, which should have lasted 90 days, is still working and moving after ten years, while Spirit is dead. Let us hope that Opprtunity survives the dust storm.
Tullio

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The JAXA Hayabusa-2 spacecraft has reached the Ryogu asteroid after a three and a half years trip. It will try to land it a MASCOT lander and three other smaller before attempting a soft landing to collect some material and bring it back to Earth. Ryogu is about 1 km wide and rotated around its axis in 7.5 hours.
Tullio

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A 300 TeV neutrino has been detected by the IceCube neutrino observatory in Antarctica. With the help of the Fermi Large Area gamma-ray telescope in orbit and other telescopes in the EM spectrum its source was identified in a blazar (active galaxy with a huge black hole in its center) at a distance of 3.7 billion light years. The discovery has been reported on "Science" magazine.
As a footnote, Einstein@home BOINC project is processing FERMI data.
Tullio

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Wanted. A name

As far as I know, officially the name of the rover "ExoMars".
This name was established by the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency.

Currently called ExoMars, the six-wheeled robot needs something a bit more engaging and inspiring for when it lands on the Red Planet.

Suggest you read reports fully before making wrong statements.

Dr David Parker, the director of human spaceflight and robotics at the European Space Agency, agreed: "The Americans called their Mars rovers Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity. We've tended in the past to name our missions after famous scientists. "But, yes, perhaps this time we go with a name connected with the search for life - biology, genetics, DNA, whatever. Who knows? We just want a great name."