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--- transportation:space [2026/07/19 01:26] – [2026 (Texas)] timb
+++ transportation:space [2026/09/10 22:32] (current) – [Mercury] timb
@@ Line 1592: / Line 1592: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/a-missing-black-hole-was-found-hiding-in-a-giant-star-cluster-astronomers-think-there-could-be-thousands-more-2000785795
+== James Webb Space Telescope Discovers How Black Holes Feed Themselves ==
+Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 19, 2026 12:05PM
+"Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have been given a glimpse of the mechanisms that supermassive black holes use to feed themselves," reports Space.com:
+<blockquote>
+The powerful cosmic titans get really puzzling when astronomers using the JWST spot them before the universe was even 1 billion years old. That's because the mechanisms by which black holes devour matter to grow and then merge to create even more massive black holes should take at least 1 billion years to achieve supermassive status. This is even more confusing because theories also say the most ravenously feeding black holes (and thus the fastest growing) should also push the matter they use for this growth away, in effect putting themselves on a diet. So, with all this in mind, how did supermassive black holes grow so rapidly in the early universe?
+One explanation suggests supermassive black holes push away gas, starving themselves as predicted, but also that this matter eventually cools and falls back to the black hole. That would allow for another period of feeding and thus growth. This explanation further suggests that as this gas cools down, it forms "streamers," or filaments, of gas just a few hundred light-years wide but which stretch thousands of light-years long. These would fall back to the center of the galaxy and form a swirling disk around its incumbent black hole, once again feeding it and triggering a new period of growth. This would then restart the jets from the black hole, which would again cut off the cosmic titan's food supply, allowing the whole process to begin once more. The process would in essence be a self-regulating cycle of feasting followed by fasting. However, the connection between these filaments and supermassive black holes has been elusive, meaning this mechanism has resisted confirmation.
+</blockquote>
+https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/07/19/191239/james-webb-space-telescope-discovers-how-black-holes-feed-themselves
+== This Star Orbits So Close to Our Galaxy’s Black Hole That Spacetime Twists Around It ==
+The star's orbit appears to be closely linked to the black hole's spin—a characteristic of black holes astronomers have long struggled to measure.
+Gayoung Lee - August 19, 2026, 11:00 am ET
+Most galaxies are known to host a supermassive black hole at their centers, and supermassive black holes are known to spin. There’s still a lot scientists don’t understand about these two statements, thanks to the general elusiveness of black holes, but the discovery of an odd star in the heart of our galaxy may offer new insights into the mystery.
+In a paper published today in Nature, astronomers report the discovery of S301, an extremely faint star orbiting Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. While S301 isn’t the only star to orbit Sagittarius A*, its journey around the black hole is the closest and fastest ever known. At its closest, the star approaches the black hole at a distance roughly equivalent with that between the Sun and Saturn. The extreme orbit of the star appears to be closely linked to the black hole’s spin, which could offer astronomers an unprecedented opportunity to directly measure the spin of a black hole.
+https://gizmodo.com/this-star-orbits-so-close-to-our-galaxys-black-hole-that-spacetime-twists-around-it-2000800284
@@ Line 3129: / Line 3156: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/solar-storms-trigger-instant-changes-in-earths-weather-study-suggests-2000776848
+== NASA's PUNCH mission can now accurately predict when solar storms will hit Earth ==
+It was accurate to within a half hour during initial tests.
+Mariella Moon - Aug. 5, 2026 8:01 am EST
+In March 2025, NASA launched the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission in an effort to better understand solar weather. It consists of a constellation of four microsatellites, monitoring the sun 24/7. Those satellites started taking images of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are explosive expulsions of materials from the sun into space, as soon as they arrived in orbit. Now, the PUNCH team has taken those images and data to show how much the mission can improve solar storm forecasts.
+The scientists used continuous imagery of a coronal mass ejection that the PUNCH satellites took on May 31, 2025 to see if they could improve forecast modeling for solar storms. A CME causes solar storm, which happens when the solar materials from the blast reach Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field.
+The team fed the data into a computer model, which analyzed the edges of the CME over time and then used its speed and shape to calculate when it would reach Earth. It ultimately predicted after analyzing the first 12 hours of the coronal mass ejection, that the solar storm would arrive on Earth eight hours later. It was accurate to within half an hour, making it much better than current methods that have an error margin of five hours. That's because before PUNCH, our instruments could only track one-fifth of the CME's journey from the sun to our planet. PUNCH allows scientists to track CMEs all the way through and even captures images once every four minutes.
+Read More: https://www.engadget.com/2230660/nasa-punch-mission-accurate-prediction-solar-storms/
+== A Solar Superstorm Caused a GPS Glitch Bad Enough to Crash Self-Driving Cars ==
+The massive eruption threw GPS readings off by more than 33 feet (10 meters).
+Passant Rabie - September 2, 2026, 4:40 pm ET
+On November 11, 2025, the Sun unleashed a series of solar flares that struck Earth, triggering a severe geomagnetic storm that peaked for around six hours. The event triggered beautiful auroras across the skies, but it also wreaked havoc on crucial technology we rely on for our daily lives.
+In a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team of scientists measured the disruption to global navigation systems caused by the geomagnetic storm. The results revealed significant positioning errors, large enough to mess with precision agriculture and autonomous vehicles across the U.S.
+https://gizmodo.com/a-solar-superstorm-caused-a-gps-glitch-bad-enough-to-crash-self-driving-cars-2000806428
@@ Line 3215: / Line 3270: @@
+==== Inouye Space Telescope ====
+== NSF Inouye Solar Telescope Enables Major Discovery of a Hidden Solar Process ==
+Release Date: August 5, 2026
+Scientists using the U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope have made a major breakthrough in solar physics, discovering Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability on the surface of the Sun — a finding that could help explain explosive solar activity and other solar phenomena.
+Scientists using the U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope have made a major breakthrough in solar physics, discovering Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability on the surface of the Sun — a finding that could help explain explosive solar activity and other solar phenomena.
+SUMMARY: The U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO) announced today a major breakthrough in solar physics. Using the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope near the summit of Maui’s Haleakalā, combined with computer simulations, an international team of scientists from the NSO, NSF NCAR High Altitude Observatory (HAO), and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) found the signature of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI), tiny swirling patterns like small whirlpools, on the Sun’s surface. Researchers suggest that KHI might be a key reason why the Sun’s outer atmosphere gets so hot, and why magnetic energy builds up and moves around on the Sun. Magnetic energy fuels solar flares and eruptions—the kind of solar activity that can send bursts of energy toward Earth and affect satellites, power grids, and other technology. The discovery opens a new window into the fundamental physics of the Sun and other stars while underscoring the unmatched capabilities of the Inouye Solar Telescope.
+https://nso.edu/press-release/nsf-inouye-solar-telescope-enables-major-discovery-of-a-hidden-solar-process/
 ==== Kitt Peak ====
@@ Line 3270: / Line 3341: @@
 https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/01/18/0613233/visiting-the-roman-space-telescope---as-its-being-assembled
+== NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now on its way to study the 'dark universe' ==
+Its first images are expected to arrive in early 2027.
+Cheyenne MacDonald - Aug. 30, 2026 2:25 pm EST
+The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has officially launched on its mission to explore dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of the universe. NASA's new space telescope, which is able to image swaths of the sky 100 times larger than what Hubble could capture, launched this morning from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
+The space agency confirmed shortly after launch that Roman had successfully deployed its solar panels and lower instrument sun shade. Over the coming days and weeks, the rest of its instruments will deploy and activate. Once it's all up and running, NASA says Roman will send home 1.4 terabytes of data a day. We can expect to see its first images in early 2027.
+Read More: https://www.engadget.com/2247120/nasa-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope-launches-to-study-dark-universe/
+== SpaceX Launching NASA's Roman Space Telescope to Explore Dark Energy and Habitable Planets ==
+Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday August 30, 2026 04:22AM
+SpaceX is scheduled to launch the Roman Space Telescope on a Falcon Heavy rocket, with the launch window opening at 7:26 a.m. EDT (1126 GMT). NASA will carry the launch live on YouTube.
+CNN offers this mission overview from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. "Roman will investigate dark matter, dark energy and the structure of the universe itself, and accelerate the future of discovery of potentially habitable planets outside our solar system." In fact, "NASA anticipates that Roman will image more than 50 times as much of the sky in the next five years as Hubble covered in three decades," reports USA Today, noting that "every single image it beams back to Earth will contain the equivalent of 100 pictures Hubble would capture."
+<blockquote>
+The barrel-shaped Roman telescope is due to set up operations nearly 1 million miles from Earth and begin scouring previously unobservable areas of the cosmos... NASA will make all of Roman's data available for anyone to peruse, meaning astronomers from all over the world will have the opportunity to make use of the observatory for advanced research, NASA says... Spanning 42 feet long and more than 14 feet wide, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is outfitted with two primary instruments
+</blockquote>
+https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/08/30/0317245/spacex-launching-nasas-roman-space-telescope-to-explore-dark-energy-and-habitable-planets
+== Trump Crashed NASA’s Press Conference to Praise the Space Telescope He Repeatedly Tried to Kill ==
+The president interrupted a NASA press briefing to say, "I'm supplying you all that money."
+Passant Rabie - August 31, 2026, 11:15 am ET
+Following the successful launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday, the agency held a news conference to discuss the observatory’s upcoming science operations. The standard post-launch briefing took a weird turn, however, when the U.S. president unexpectedly chimed in to congratulate NASA on the mission he repeatedly tried to scrap.
+About halfway through Sunday’s news conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman received a call from President Donald Trump. Isaacman briefly left the room and returned with the president on the line, speaking at the press briefing through speakerphone.
+“I just want to thank everybody, and congratulate you. Boy, it looked beautiful on television,” Trump said of the Roman space telescope’s launch, according to Space.com. “Jared is doing a fantastic job, you are doing a fantastic job, and I’m supplying you all that money.”
+https://gizmodo.com/trump-repeatedly-tried-to-cancel-the-roman-space-telescope-now-hes-praising-its-launch-2000804954
 ==== Vera Rubin Telescope ====
@@ Line 4719: / Line 4834: @@
+===== Mars Meteorite (Algeria) =====
+== Mars Meteorite Found in Algeria Dates Back to a Previously Hidden Time ==
+The 1.27 billion-year-old rock bridges a huge gap in the Red Planet's history.
+Passant Rabie - August 13, 2026, 11:15 am ET
+A Martian rock was flung from our neighboring planet and made its way to Earth, landing in the Sahara desert. Now, scientists have dated the meteorite and found that it unlocks a 1.8 billion-year-old gap in Mars’ history that’s so far been shrouded in mystery.
+The meteorite, designated Northwest Africa (NWA) 13441, was discovered in Algeria in 2019. A team of scientists snagged a 0.03-ounce (0.9-gram) sample from the rock and analyzed it in the lab, discovering that it dates back to 1.27 billion years ago.
+The findings, published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, help scientists peer into a crucial time period in Mars’ geological record that transformed the planet during its early history.
+https://gizmodo.com/mars-meteorite-found-in-algeria-dates-back-to-a-previously-hidden-time-2000798209
@@ Line 8171: / Line 8303: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-have-found-6000-exoplanets-but-this-could-be-the-first-known-exomoon-2000694077
+== Astronomers May Have Discovered First Moon Outside Our Solar System ==
+Posted by BeauHD on Friday July 24, 2026 08:00AM
+Astronomers studying the star system CD-35 2722 may have found the first known moon-like object outside our solar system. The classification is unusually tricky, however, because it orbits a brown dwarf rather than a planet, making it clearly an "exosatellite" but forcing scientists to rethink where the line between planet, moon, and failed star should be drawn. Space.com reports:
+<blockquote>
+The star CD-35 2722 is located around 73 light-years away and has around half the mass of the sun. It is orbited by a "failed star" or brown dwarf. These stellar bodies get their unfortunate nickname because they form like other stars but fail to gather enough mass to trigger the fusion of hydrogen to helium in their cores. In terms of mass, brown dwarfs are more massive than the largest gas giant planets, but smaller than the smallest stars, usually with around 13 to 80 times the mass of Jupiter, or around 0.013 to 0.08 times the mass of the sun.
+The newly discovered object in CD-35 2722 is certainly moon-like, but rather than orbiting a planet as the moons in the solar system do, it orbits the system's brown dwarf. "This system is somewhat hard to define using solar-system-based words like 'planet' and 'moon.' The exosatellite is clearly massive enough to be a planet, but it does not orbit a star, though it orbits an object that orbits a star," team leader Kevin Hoy of the Universidad Diego Portales and the Millennium Nucleus of Young Exoplanets and their Moons (YEMS) in Chile, said in a statement. "Being the third wheel in this system makes us want to call it a moon, even if it is nothing like the small, rocky moons we have in our system."
+</blockquote>
+https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/07/24/0712238/astronomers-may-have-discovered-first-moon-outside-our-solar-system
@@ Line 8323: / Line 8470: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/scientists-spent-13-years-bouncing-radar-off-europa-heres-what-they-found-2000773879
+== Europa’s Hidden Ocean May Be Even Harder to Reach Than We Thought ==
+For a long time, scientists assumed that the tiny water pools at Europa's surface came from the moon's deep, icy oceans. But is that physically possible?
+Gayoung Lee - July 24, 2026, 4:45 pm ET
+Earlier this year, researchers warned against the dangers of “fluffy ice” on Europa’s surface. If unaccounted for, missions headed to Jupiter’s moon could drown themselves in its deep, icy oceans. A new study suggests that this won’t happen—but for reasons that won’t make our Europa trips any easier.
+A paper published yesterday in Nature Astronomy challenges the assumption that the shallow pools of water on Europa’s surface represent a direct access route to the moon’s deep, icy oceans. In theory, this supposed access route could make it easier for a probe to explore how liquid water from Europa’s deep oceans traveled through cracks in the ice to the surface. Unfortunately, we’re not sure if this even happens.
+“This is exactly what we wanted to test,” Lujendra Ojha, the study’s first author and an earth scientist at Rutgers University, told Gizmodo. “In particular, we asked whether the water could travel this distance before losing enough heat to freeze and whether the fractures could remain open long enough to transport a meaningful amount of water.”
+https://gizmodo.com/europas-hidden-ocean-may-be-even-harder-to-reach-than-we-thought-2000790541
@@ Line 8750: / Line 8907: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/russia-claims-new-plasma-based-engine-could-cut-mars-travel-to-just-30-days-2000562451
+== Viking 1 landed on Mars 50 years ago ==
+And would have lasted longer if some code hadn't trampled on places it shouldn't
+Richard Speed - Tue 21 Jul 2026 10:45 UTC
+It has been half a century since NASA landed on Mars with the Viking 1 lander.
+Viking 1, one of a pair of Viking spacecraft, landed on Mars on July 20, 1976. Launched on August 20, 1975, Viking 1 arrived in orbit around Mars on June 19, 1976. The Viking program is, when adjusted for inflation, one of the most expensive robotic missions ever attempted by NASA.
+The spacecraft consisted of an orbiter, which was eventually shut down on August 7 as its attitude control gas was depleted, and a lander, which became the longest-lived component of the Viking program (and even then, it was only human error that did it in).
+The original plan had called for a landing on Mars on July 4, 1976, to coincide with the US Bicentennial, but a look at the potential landing site made managers postpone the descent to July 20 – the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing – and a safer destination.
+The lander was equipped with an ablative heat shield to withstand atmospheric entry. Parachutes slowed the lander as it descended, and retro-rockets fired just above the surface to ensure the three-legged Viking lander reached Martian soil without incident.
+https://www.theregister.com/science/2026/07/21/viking-1-landed-on-mars-50-years-ago/5275041
@@ Line 8813: / Line 8987: @@
+==== Communication ====
+== Blue Origin wins NASA contract for telecommunications on Mars ==
+Can you hear me now?
+Anna Washenko - Updated: Sept. 2, 2026 3:38 pm EST
+NASA announced today that it has awarded Blue Origin the contract to develop the Mars Telecommunications Network. The company has taken a deal worth potentially $700 million to create a high-performance Mars telecommunications orbiter for the agency by December 31, 2028. Once operational, the orbiter will transmit "science data, imagery, navigation information, and critical mission communications for spacecraft operating on and around the planet."
+The space agency is using its Artemis program to explore the moon. Progress has been slow but resulted in a successful human crewed mission earlier this year, and those missions will serve as preparation to eventually send astronauts to Mars. NASA will need more data as it continues to work toward that goal, so having a reliable way to send that information from the Red Planet to the Blue Dot will be essential.
+Blue Origin has already worked with the space agency, securing a contract to build lunar landers at the start of this year. In May, the company's New Glenn rocket program took a setback after a launchpad explosion, but Blue Origin's CEO claimed repairs on the launchpad would be done by the end of 2026.
+Read More: https://www.engadget.com/2249162/blue-origin-wins-nasa-contract-for-telecommunications-on-mars/
@@ Line 9017: / Line 9210: @@
 https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasas-mars-orbiter-snapped-this-image-of-curiosity-trucking-along-down-at-the-surface-211404950.html
+== NASA’s Curiosity Rover Finds a Vast Sea of Strange Honeycomb Patterns on Mars ==
+The rover has never found so many in one place before.
+Ellyn Lapointe - July 30, 2026, 11:25 am ET
+For more than a decade, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been trudging up Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain at the center of the Gale Crater on Mars. Scientists believe lakes and streams covered the foothills of this peak billions of years ago, and Curiosity just found an abundance of evidence to support that hypothesis.
+The rover captured a 360-degree panorama inside a valley nicknamed “Valle Grande” on June 19 and 20, revealing a vast plain of honeycomb-like surface features stretching as far as its Mast Camera could see. The image is made up of 340 individual snapshots that Curiosity beamed back to Earth, where scientists stitched them together. While this isn’t the first time the rover has spotted these “polygonal fractures,” as NASA calls them, it has never found so many in one place before.
+“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” Ashwin Vasavada, the project scientist for Curiosity, said in a statement. “We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”
+https://gizmodo.com/nasas-curiosity-rover-finds-a-vast-sea-of-strange-honeycomb-patterns-on-mars-2000792909
@@ Line 9574: / Line 9777: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/dramatic-video-shows-the-closest-flyby-ever-of-mercury-2000498505
+== Scientists Drastically Underestimated How Much Mercury Has Shrunk ==
+A new estimate of Mercury's shrinkage shows that this planet may have contracted 10% to 30% more than previous research suggested.
+Ellyn Lapointe - September 10, 2026, 9:00 am ET
+Mercury, the littlest planet in our solar system (though Pluto apologists may beg to differ), is getting smaller by the day. In fact, it’s been slowly shriveling up ever since it formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. A new analysis of its shrinkage, or “radial contraction,” throws earlier estimates into question.
+The findings, published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest Mercury has shrunk a whopping 10% to 30% more than previous studies found. The new estimate equates to a loss of roughly 12 miles (19 kilometers) of total diameter since the planet formed.
+“Mercury’s radial contraction provided in previous works has been underestimated because of lack of consideration of recent geologies,” lead author Gaku Nishiyama, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Space Research, told Gizmodo in an email. By “recent geologies,” Nishiyama means geologically young impact craters and their ejected debris, which can obscure signs of the planet’s shrinkage.
+“Our study solved this point for the first time by using surface roughness of Mercury [to] successfully estimate how much radial contraction has been missed in previous works,” he explained.
+https://gizmodo.com/scientists-drastically-underestimated-how-much-mercury-has-shrunk-2000808810
@@ Line 11856: / Line 12077: @@
 https://www.space.com/sun-magnetic-field-flip-solar-maximum-2024
+== Astronomers Found the Sun’s Missing Silver Hiding in Plain Sight ==
+For decades, astronomers puzzled over the Sun’s missing silver. Turns out, we just weren’t looking at it in the right way.
+Gayoung Lee - July 20, 2026, 11:25 am ET
+Theoretically, the Sun shares its chemical origins with meteorites that are billions of years old. But for decades, astronomers wondered why our star appeared to contain significantly less silver than those ancient space rocks. The answer may be that we just weren’t looking closely enough.
+In a recent Astronomy & Astrophysics paper, researchers explain that more realistic modeling of the Sun’s atmosphere shows that it actually contains about 55% more silver than previous estimates. This value is much more aligned with the chemical history of the earliest meteorites and advances our understanding of how heavier elements like silver are produced and processed in the stellar cycle. Fascinatingly, the findings are a result of more refined, not necessarily novel, measurements of the solar environment.
+“The new knowledge about the Sun’s composition is important for the understanding of other stars, planets, and cosmic material, because the Sun is one of astronomy’s key reference points,” Sema Caliskan, the study’s first author and currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liège in Belgium, said in a statement.
+https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-found-the-suns-missing-silver-hiding-in-plain-sight-2000787743
 ==== Parker Solar Probe ====