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☆ NASA image may show first-ever 'rogue' supermassive black hole, leaving a trail of newborn stars in its wake
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

A NASA Hubble image may show the first runaway supermassive black hole ever discovered. Astrophysicists have long theorized that black holes could "go rogue" or "run away," if other black holes pushed them out of their galaxies. But nobody has ever confirmed a black hole wandering through intergalactic space, much less a supermassive black hole going rogue. And while two galaxies colliding is the simplest explanation for a rogue black hole, that's not what seems to have happened here. Even though they're invisible, there's no reason to worry about rogue supermassive black holes sneaking up on us from other galaxies.

☆ NHL roundup: Stars rally, but Flames pull out late win
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar each collected two assists, and goalie Jacob Markstrom made 29 saves. Sharks 3, Jets 2 (OT)Logan Couture scored in overtime after assisting on Tomas Hertl's late game-tying goal as San Jose outlasted host Winnipeg. Senators goalie Mads Sogaard made 16 saves on 21 shots after being pressed into action when Cam Talbot was scratched due to a lower-body injury. Kings 4, Capitals 2Adrian Kempe had a goal and an assist for Los Angeles in a win against visiting Washington. Luke Evangelista scored two goals and Colton Sissons also scored for the Predators, whose two-game win streak ended.

☆ NHL roundup: Bruins become fastest to 100 points
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

With their ninth consecutive win, the Bruins improved to 48-8-5 on the season and became the fastest team in NHL history to record 100 points, doing so in 61 games. Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo and David Krejci each recorded two assists while Patrice Bergeron and Connor Clifton also scored goals. Casey Mittelstadt scored the lone goal and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 35 saves for the Sabres, who dropped their second straight. The Lightning are 2-3-3 in their past eight games and have lost three straight for the first time. The Stars gave goalie Matt Murray his NHL debut, and he finished with 19 saves for the win.

☆ Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are ruining images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, threatening future science
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is getting more satellites ruining its images, a new study found. Hubble images streaked with white lines show the impact of just one satellite flying through the telescope's field of view. The proportion of Hubble images that look like this is increasing as more satellites fill Earth's orbit, the study found. Hubble peers through a growing 'wall' between us and the universeThe Hubble Space Telescope in Earth's orbit. So far SpaceX has launched more than 3,000 Starlink satellites and plans to eventually maintain up to 42,000 satellites in orbit.

☆ Astronaut Tim Peake says Europe's space agency avoids hiring people who say they would live and die on Mars
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Astronaut Tim Peake said Europe's space agency avoids hiring people who want a one-way trip to Mars. The ESA wants people who are thoughtful and aware of risk mitigation, Peake told the FT.Peake added there were hurdles to overcome to reach Mars safely. During an interview with the Financial Times, published on Monday, Peake said those types of people were not who the space agency was looking for when hiring candidates. Peake told the FT that before getting there, "we have to get over the hurdles of getting to Mars safely." "I absolutely do not see us having a problem with getting to Mars and creating safe habitats on Mars," Peake told the FT.

☆ 5 times scientists thought they'd maybe discovered signs of extraterrestrial life but sadly didn't
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Extraterrestrial life could exist, but mysterious objects in the sky aren't evidence of aliens. Scientists have thought they were close to discovering alien life a few times — none of it via UFOs. As the US discovered a flurry of UFOs — officially called "unidentified anomalous phenomena," or UAPs — in early February, Google searches for "extraterrestrial life" and "are aliens real" spiked. There have been incidents in the past where some researchers thought they'd come close to discovering signs of alien life — or even extraterrestrial intelligence — but none were UFOs. They dubbed the first interstellar object 'Oumuamua, which is a Hawaiian term meaning "a messenger from afar arriving first."

☆ South African cities scramble to keep the lights on
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Carien Du Plessis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Officials plan to procure up to 500 megawatts (MW) from private power companies by 2026 to provide roughly a third of the city's annual 1,500-1,800 megawatts (MW) electricity needs. [1/5] A woman tests LED lights on a solar panel at their factory called Ener-G-Africa, where they produce high-quality solar panels made by an all-women team, in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. The neighbouring Ekurhuleni municipality has signed deals with 46 private power companies for 700 MW, according to its 2020/2021 annual report. Hill-Lewis said Cape Town also plans to change its energy policy to allow households and businesses that produce solar power to sell the excess to the city. In Cape Town, for those wanting to sell excess power to the city, a 12,000 rand feed-in meter is required.

☆ ADNOC Drilling reports a 33% rise in net profits last year
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailADNOC Drilling reports a 33% rise in net profits last yearEsa Ikaheimonen, CFO of ADNOC Drilling, speaks to CNBC's Dan Murphy about the 33% rise in net profits last year.

[1/4] South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during his 2023 state of the nation address in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. "We are in the grip of a profound energy crisis," Ramaphosa said in his annual State of the Nation Address to parliament. State electricity utility Eskom is implementing the worst rolling blackouts on record, leaving households in the dark, disrupting manufacturing and hurting businesses of all sizes. Declaring a national state of disaster gives the government additional powers to respond to a crisis, including by permitting emergency procurement procedures with fewer bureaucratic delays and less oversight. Ramaphosa said on Thursday he would appoint a minister of electricity within the presidency to focus solely on the crisis.

☆ The green comet and Mars will appear side-by-side next weekend. Spot them together in the sky.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A green comet and Mars will appear side-by-side in the night sky on February 10 and 11. The green comet and the red planet will be visible side-by-side across the Northern Hemisphere on the nights of February 10 and 11. All that could make it much easier to spot the cosmic visitor, a ball of frozen gas and dust called Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), or Comet ZTF for short. Once you spot Mars, finding the green cosmic snowball should be a breeze if it's bright enough. How to see Mars and Comet ZTFThe Hubble Space Telescope took this snapshot of Mars in the 1990s.

☆ Gen Z still can't make up its mind about working in the office
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Amanda Goh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Gen Z is divided on the question of remote work, according to a new Dell Technologies study. In a survey, 29% of respondents said remote work is important, but another 29% said they favor office-based roles. As Insider's Aki Ito wrote in June, the preference for remote work is largely split by generation, with the oldest workers expressing the strongest preference for permanent remote work and the youngest workers — Gen Z — expressing the least preference. Many companies have been changing their remote work policies as the world continues to adjust after the pandemic. Meanwhile, JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon is famously against remote work, and the company has been tracking staff office attendance using employee ID swipes.

☆ Army of pest-munching ducks keep South African vineyard blooming
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

STELLENBOSCH, South Africa, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Flocks of white, black and brown ducks hunt for snails and bugs as they patrol the grapevines at a vineyard in South Africa's winemaking town of Stellenbosch, helping the owners steer clear of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. Around 500 Indian runner ducks work as a natural pest control at the Vergenoegd Löw Wine Estate, but also entertain wine-quaffing tourists. "We call them the soldiers of the vineyards," the managing director of the estate, Corius Visser, told Reuters. Ducks are at the heart of the winery's regenerative agriculture practices, and specifically Indian runner ducks, which have long legs and an upright posture, meaning they are able to reach for snails between the leaves. Nutrient-rich manure from the ducks and other animals ensure the vineyard runs as sustainably as possible.

☆ How exoplanet hunters find alien worlds hundreds of light-years away and figure out if they have water
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In the journal Nature Astronomy, astronomers announced that the two exoplanets — Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d — could be made up of mostly water. NASA AmesSince the first worlds outside our solar system were discovered in 1992, astronomers have searched for other planets orbiting sun-like stars. Astronomers have already captured direct evidence of 5,241 planets beyond our solar system, according to NASA's Exoplanet Archive. Water worlds beyond our solar system could be abundant in the universeWorlds rich in liquid water might not be as rare as astronomers previously thought, Piaulet said. But by discovering and studying new worlds, astronomers can hone in on what makes a world habitable beyond a sample size of one — Earth.

☆ English resort counts down to western Europe’s first satellite launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

NEWQUAY, England, — An English surfing resort was counting down to the first launch of orbital satellites into space from western Europe on Monday, when Virgin Orbit’s mission will transform the Cornish town of Newquay into the country’s first spaceport. The “horizontal” launch will catapult the resort in southwest England, population 20,000 and famous for its reliable waves rolling off the Atlantic, into the limelight as western Europe’s go-to destination for small satellites. Virgin Orbit, part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, said nine satellites would be deployed into lower Earth orbit (LEO) from its LauncherOne rocket in its first mission outside its United States base. “Assuming that everything continues to look good we’re currently tracking well for launch,” a Virgin Orbit spokeswoman said on Sunday. The LEO sector is growing rapidly, spurred by satellite broadband companies such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, Amazon and London-headquartered OneWeb.

☆ English resort counts down to western Europe's first satellite launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Henry Nicholls | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Henry NichollsNEWQUAY, England, Jan 9 (Reuters) - An English surfing resort was counting down to the first launch of orbital satellites into space from western Europe on Monday, when Virgin Orbit's mission will transform the Cornish town of Newquay into the country's first spaceport. The "horizontal" launch will catapult the resort in southwest England, population 20,000 and famous for its reliable waves rolling off the Atlantic, into the limelight as western Europe's go-to destination for small satellites. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket, designed to carry large satellites, has also had delays. "Assuming that everything continues to look good we're currently tracking well for launch," a Virgin Orbit spokeswoman said on Sunday. The LEO sector is growing rapidly, spurred by satellite broadband companies such as Elon Musk's Starlink, Amazon and London-headquartered OneWeb.

☆ NHL roundup: David Pastrnak's hat trick carries Bruins past Ducks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Mandatory Credit: Jason Parkhurst-USA TODAY SportsJanuary 9 - David Pastrnak registered his 13th career hat trick as part of a four-point performance as the Boston Bruins rolled past the host Anaheim Ducks 7-1 on Sunday night. Trevor Zegras scored the lone goal and John Gibson stopped 35 shots for Anaheim, which had won back-to-back games. Jets 7, Canucks 4Kyle Connor had a hat trick and Winnipeg extended its win streak to five games with a high-scoring victory against visiting Vancouver. Travis Konecny and Nicolas Deslauriers scored one goal each for the Flyers, who had their season-best four-game winning streak snapped. Alex Stalock stopped 44 shots to help Chicago win consecutive games for the first time since October.

☆ NHL roundup: Alex Tuch, Sabres knock off Bruins in OT
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 37 saves for Buffalo, facing 11 shots in the second period and 19 more in the third. Nic Dowd had a goal and an assist, while Dylan Strome, Anthony Mantha and Garnet Hathaway also scored. Emil Bemstrom and Kirill Marchenko also scored for the Blue Jackets in the comeback victory over the NHL's last-place team. They netted goals three times in the second, including Alex Killorn's go-ahead breakaway goal for a 4-3 lead. Stamkos scored his 498th career goal and had an assist, and Brayden Point notched a goal and a helper.

☆ There's no GPS on the moon. NASA and ESA have to fix that before humans return in 2 years.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Space agencies are working to put satellite navigation, or satnav, on rockets traveling the 239,000 miles between Earth and the moon. That means that most of the satellites' signal is blocked and only a little spills over. They were 116,300 miles away — about halfway to the moon, Ventura-Traveset said. So the plan is to give the moon its very own fleet of communication and navigation satellites, called the Moonlight initiative. Moon settlers will need high-speed internetSatellites could help future moon astronauts navigate on the moon, as can be seen in this artist's impression.

The first full-color image released from the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope is the sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever produced, according to NASA. Space Telescope Science Institut / NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERONASA released the first batch of images from the tennis court-sized observatory to much fanfare in July. The exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the James Webb Space Telescope. Back to the moonFifty years after the final Apollo moon mission, NASA took key steps toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface. Chinese officials have also said they intend to use the space station for space tourism and commercial space initiatives.

☆ Pumpkin and rooibos ice cream on menu as Cape Town cafe champions African flavours
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Esa Alexander | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/6] Tapi Tapi ice cream shop owner, Zimbabwean Tapiwa Guzha, mixes the ice cream ingredients at his shop in Observatory, in Cape Town, South Africa, December 20, 2022. "At some point it became an aspirational thing to say I don't eat African food ... so I started addressing ... that problem," he said at his Tapi Tapi shop. Located in the bohemian suburb of Observatory in Cape Town, he hopes to share the different flavours in tubs and cones, and celebrate African food culture, rituals and folklore. People often bring him ingredients from other parts of the continent, he says, who get a free tub of ice cream in return. Growing up, customer Clive Sibanda knew ice cream could be vanilla, something that is not native to South Africa.

☆ It should take another 300 years for NASA's Voyager 1 probe to reach the most distant region of our solar system. Until then, it's cruising through the void between the stars.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Voyager 1 and 2 are exploring the mysterious region between stars, called interstellar space. Both plucky spacecraft continue to send data back from beyond the solar system — and their cosmic journeys are far from over. A diagram showing both of NASA's Voyager probes in interstellar space as of November 2018. An illustration of the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud in relation to our solar system. NASA/JPL-CaltechFor the last decade, Voyager 1 has been exploring interstellar space, which is full of gas, dust, and charged energetic particles.

☆ On Pluto you could throw a baseball over the Great Pyramid of Giza, a scientist's animation reveals
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An astronomer's animation reveals how far the average person could throw a ball on different worlds. On Pluto, your baseball could clear the Great Pyramid of Giza. Watch a ball throw on each planet in our solar system, plus Pluto and the moon, below. At just two-thirds the diameter of our moon, Pluto has such weak gravity that your baseball could clear the 455-foot-tall Great Pyramid of Giza — with room to spare. The video plays out in "real time," showing how long each ball throw would take, O'Donoghue said.

☆ 20 jaw-dropping images from NASA's powerful new James Webb Space Telescope
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-25 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

The new image also shows seven of Neptune's 14 known moons. The bright blue feature that looks like a star is actually Neptune's largest moon, Triton. Zooming in on Neptune shows Webb captured its rings. Neptune has 14 known satellites, and seven of them are visible in this image. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

☆ Dazzling galactic diamonds shine in new Webb telescope image
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a unique perspective of the universe, including never-before-seen galaxies that glitter like diamonds in the cosmos. “I was blown away by the first PEARLS images,” said study coauthor Rolf Jansen, research scientist at Arizona State University and a PEARLS coinvestigator, in a statement. Together, the wavelengths of light from both telescopes reveal unprecedented depth and detail of a wealth of galaxies in the universe. The image represents just a portion of the full PEARLS field, which will be about four times larger. Other pinpricks of light in the image represent a range of stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

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