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☆ Webb telescope spies giant plume on Saturn’s moon Enceladus
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —A record-breaking water plume erupted from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and the James Webb Space Telescope was watching when it occurred. The geyser-like plumes release water vapor, organic chemicals and ice particles into space. But the plume witnessed by the Webb telescope spanned more than 6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers), which is nearly the distance between Los Angeles and Buenos Aires, Argentina, according to a NASA release. The James Webb Space Telescope captured a a water vapor plume jetting from the south pole of Enceladus. The inset image, taken by the Cassini orbiter, shows how small Enceladus appears compared with the water plume.

Persons: James Webb, Cassini, —, Webb, . Villanueva, ”, Geronimo Villanueva, ” Villanueva, “, NASA’s, Stefanie Milam, we’ve Organizations: CNN, NASA, James Webb Space, Cassini, ESA, CSA, Goddard Space Flight, Saturn, Clipper, NASA Goddard Space Flight Locations: Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Greenbelt , Maryland

☆ Side-by-side images of Uranus show how NASA's James Webb telescope outclasses Hubble, spotting vivid rings that used to go unseen
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

NASA has turned its powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on Uranus. Side-by-side images show once again how much more powerful JWST is than NASA's other space observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, when it comes to infrared imaging. An annotated image points to Uranus's polar cap. Image of Uranus' rings, backlit by the sun. It's not just Uranus's rings that are getting attentionJWST's image also provides a good look at Uranus's mysterious polar cap.

Persons: James Webb, —, Webb, JWST, Hubble, Showalter, It's Organizations: NASA, James Webb Space, Service, Hubble, Keck, ESA, CSA, SETI

☆ Here’s how you can see Mars live for the first time
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Madeline Holcombe | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Mars is making its live streaming debut, and the show will reveal the red planet in a whole new light. On Friday, the European Space Agency is set to stream on YouTube an hour of the first live images directly from Mars, according to statement from the agency. While it won’t be truly live, there will be a new image about every 50 seconds of that hour, the agency said. “I’m excited to see Mars as it is now — as close to a martian ‘now’ as we can possibly get!”But haven’t we seen images of Mars before? Depending on where Mars and Earth are in their orbits around the sun, the messages that journey through space can take anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes.

Persons: ”, James Godfrey, “, we’ve Organizations: CNN, European Space Agency, Mars, YouTube, Twitter, ESA Locations: Mars, Darmstadt, Germany

☆ NASA's Webb Telescope spots a water plume twice the length of the US, spewing from a Saturn moon that could host alien life
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

NASA's Webb Telescope revealed just how giant the water plumes shooting out of a Saturn moon are. The water gushes 6,000 miles, or about twice the length of the US, from the moon called Enceladus. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSIBut the James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful observatory ever launched into space. A water vapor plume jetting from the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. "It was just so shocking to detect a water plume more than 20 times the size of the moon."

Persons: NASA's, —, James Webb, Cassini, Webb, NASA’s James Webb, Geronimo Villanueva, " Villanueva, Leah Hustak, Saturn Organizations: Service, NASA, JPL, Caltech, SSI, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, ESA, CSA, Goddard Space Flight Locations: Los Angeles , California, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Angeles, San Francisco

☆ Earth's neighboring star Betelgeuse unexpectedly got 50% brighter —part of a weird process that will end in the dying star going supernova
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

This dying red giant had only recently mysteriously dimmed its shine after an enormous explosion. It is expected to explode into a supernova visible from Earth, though likely not for thousands of years. The red giant — a star not far from death — is now shining about 50% brighter than it usually would, scientists said. Scientists are keeping a close eye on Betelgeuse, as this red giant is a dying star that is close to turning supernova. Betelgeuse could burst into a supernova visible from Earth — one dayA pre-supernova star, called a Wolf-Rayet star, 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.

☆ Webb telescope spots water in rare comet
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a rare comet in our solar system, making a long-awaited scientific breakthrough and stumbling across another mystery at the same time. For the first time, water was detected in a main belt comet, or a comet located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The space observatory detected water vapor around Comet Read, which suggests that water ice can be preserved in a warmer part of the solar system. It’s possible that the warmer temperatures of the main asteroid belt cause Comet Read to lose its carbon dioxide over time, the researchers said. Comet Read might have also formed in a warmer pocket of the solar system without carbon dioxide, Kelley said.

☆ Astronomers spot the biggest cosmic explosion ever seen, and it's 100 times the size of our solar system
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

This enormous fireball, which is about 8 billion light years away, is approximately 100 times bigger than the solar system. While it's not the brightest flash ever seen, it is "by far the most energy released" from a single explosion, Wiseman added. This may be a black hole slurping up a cloud of gas and dustThe world's first picture of a black hole, unrelated to this story. One theory is that explosions could emerge from the black hole to stop gas from falling into the black hole. Right now, the explosion is so bright that it's not possible to see a galaxy around the black hole.

☆ Last known speaker fights to preserve South African indigenous language
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

UPINGTON, South Africa, May 11 (Reuters) - When she was a girl in South Africa's Northern Cape, Katrina Esau stopped speaking her mother tongue, N|uu, after being mocked by other people and told it was an "ugly language". Now at age 90, she is the last known speaker of N|uu, one of a group of indigenous languages in South Africa that have been all but stamped out by the impacts of colonialism and apartheid. "We became ashamed when we were young girls, and we stopped speaking the language," Esau told Reuters. Instead she spoke Afrikaans, the language promoted by South Africa's white minority rulers. [1/5] Ouma Katrina Esau, the last known fluent mother-tongue speaker of the indigenous N|uu language is seen during the ceremony where she was honoured with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by the University of Cape Town, in Cape Town, South Africa, March 29, 2023.

☆ Watch the moment a cosmonaut tossed a bag of parts into space but NASA said the space litter is harmless
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Jessica Orwig | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Technically, it's space littering. About 6.5 hours into the spacewalk, Prokopyev tossed an 11-pound bag of leftover equipment into space. Basically, space littering is like if someone came along after the electrician, burned the bag, and discarded the ashes. —International Space Station (@Space_Station) May 4, 2023We're not saying that space junk, in general, isn't a problem. In fact, multiple times a year the space station fires its booster to push itself out of the path of incoming orbital debris — and for good reason.

☆ Webb telescope spies evidence of hidden planets around nearby star
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The revelation of the Fomalhaut’s two inner rings has suggested that planets hidden deeper within the star system may be affecting the dust belt’s shape. Stars form from gas and dust, and then a ring of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk orbits the star, where planets are born. Once the planets form around a star, debris belts form and become shaped by the gravity of the planets. Studying the dust belts can help unlock more of the secrets behind how planetary systems form. “I think it’s not a very big leap to say there’s probably a really interesting planetary system around the star.”

☆ Russia's economy is suffering from industrial decline as satellites detect less pollution in the air
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Pollution in Russia's industrial regions fell 1.2% in the six months to April, and is 6.2% lower annually. Still, the satellite data offers a picture that cannot be easily obscured. Additional satellite data shows that the automotive sector, construction, oil and gas, and even the defense industry are emitting less pollution. ECB economists Adrian Schmith and Hanna Sakhno have also incorporated satellite pollution data as part of their alternative tracker of economic data for Russia. Our tracker shows a contraction of the Russian economy ahead of the official figures release precisely because we use high-frequency indicators from the private economy."

☆ Esa junta fue muy larga (y tal vez pudo ser un correo electrónico)
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Alyson Krueger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Send any friend a storyAs a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

☆ Webb telescope detects mysterious water vapor in a nearby star system
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope has detected water vapor around a rocky exoplanet that orbits a star located 26 light-years away from Earth. The presence of water vapor could suggest that GJ 486 b somehow has an atmosphere, despite its heat and proximity to the star. “Water vapor in an atmosphere on a hot rocky planet would represent a major breakthrough for exoplanet science. The results from the Webb data analysis pointed to water vapor being present around GJ 486 b. Future observations of the planet using different instruments on the Webb telescope could reveal additional details about the source of the water vapor.

☆ Fact Check-Ocean pulled to Earth by force of gravity
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The ocean is pulled down to Earth due to gravity, despite a viral post shared online falsely claiming that the planet’s oceans are held inside a “container,” with Antarctica forming the external ridge. The posts allude to flat earth conspiracies. OUR CONTAINER.”The ocean is pulled down to the irregular ellipsoid-shaped Earth due to gravity (here), however, and is not held together by containers on a flat surface. On Earth, per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “gravity pulls all objects ‘downward’ toward the center of the planet” (bit.ly/41XcxYq). The ocean is pulled to Earth due to gravity.

☆ A Russian 'inspector' satellite appears to be chasing a secret US military satellite in a game of cat and mouse
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A Russian satellite appears to be stalking a classified US military satellite in a cat-and-mouse chase. Dickinson added that the US would continue to track the Russian spacecraft. Then, in 2020, a US Space Force general reported that two mysterious Russian satellites were tailing a US spy satellite. The Russian satellite was set to pass its US military target at a distance of about 31 kilometers on April 7, Janssen calculated. This could have been a maneuver the US conducted to evade the close approach of the Russian satellite, Zak reported.

☆ Rocket that landed in the wrong country recovered
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Authorities in Sweden have retrieved the payload of a research rocket launched from the country’s Esrange Space Center that landed by error in neighboring Norway. It landed 15 kilometers (9 miles) across the Norwegian border — 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the planned landing site — in a forested area that lies 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) above sea level. The rocket’s payload was recovered on Tuesday in good condition and transported by helicopter back to the Esrange Space Center in the north of Sweden. We are now investigating the reason why the rocket flew further northwest than (optimal). It is still too early to speculate about the cause, and we await more information from the current investigation,” Marko Kohberg, head of sounding rocket and balloon operations at Esrange Space Center, said in a Tuesday statement.

☆ Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after historic moon landing attempt
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —A Japanese lunar lander, carrying a rover developed in the United Arab Emirates, attempted to find its footing on the moon’s surface Tuesday — and potentially mark the world’s first lunar landing for a commercially developed spacecraft. The lunar lander, called Hakuto-R, was carrying the Rashid rover — the first Arab-built lunar spacecraft, which was built by Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. Israel-based company SpaceIL was the first XPrize contestant to attempt to put its lander on the moon after the program ended. Its Beresheet spacecraft crashed in 2019 after ground teams lost contact with the lander as it approached the surface. That same year, the Indian Space and Research Organisation lost contact with a lunar lander shortly before it was slated to touch down on the moon.

☆ South Africa to try to withdraw from ICC again - Ramaphosa
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Carien Du Plessis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responds to a parliamentary debate on his state of the nation address in Cape Town, South Africa, February 16, 2023. Only two days earlier, South Africa's parliament announced that it would abandon a seven-year-long legislative process to pull South Africa out of the ICC's Rome Statute. The process was abandoned because the governing party in December decided that South Africa should rather remain in the ICC and try to effect changes from within, a decision that has now been reversed. The international arrest warrant against Putin was issued after he had already received his invite from South Africa to the BRICS summit in August, and it would oblige South Africa to hand him over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if he set foot in the country. "He has been invited by President Ramaphosa and Russia has indicated attendance," South Africa's official in charge of the relationship with BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries, Anil Sooklal, told Reuters.

☆ Investing in Space special report: Starship succeeds, in spite of failure
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Michael Sheetz | In Michaeljsheetz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

CNBC's Investing in Space newsletter offers a view into the business of space exploration and privatization, delivered straight to your inbox. As I sprinted for a flight in the Dallas airport near midnight last night, I didn't actually think SpaceX was going to light up Starship's engines this morning. And even with the Super Heavy booster successfully ignited, I still didn't think the rocket would get off the ground. Michael Sheetz is CNBC's space reporter – send tips, talent moves and more to michael.sheetz@nbcuni.com. Listen to CNBC's "Manifest Space" podcast, hosted by Morgan Brennan, wherever you find podcasts.

☆ Jupiter Mission Launches on Journey to Explore Icy Worlds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Aylin Woodward | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/jupiter-moons-mission-juice-esa-9a8b4a5c

☆ Juice mission launches to explore Jupiter’s icy ocean worlds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —The European Space Agency has sent a spacecraft to explore Jupiter and three of its largest and most intriguing moons. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, or Juice, launched Friday at 8:14 a.m. Toward the end of the mission, Juice will focus solely on orbiting Ganymede, making it the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon in the outer solar system. The Juice mission was designed to unravel what takes place as Jupiter interacts with its moons, including auroras, hot spots, radio emissions and waves of charged particles. Given the eventual distance between the spacecraft and Earth, it will take 45 minutes to send a one-way signal to Juice.

☆ The Juice mission will soon launch to Jupiter’s icy ocean worlds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, or Juice, was expected to lift off Thursday at 8:15 a.m. European Space AgencyGanymede, Callisto and Europa are ice-covered worlds that may contain subsurface oceans that are potentially habitable for life. European Space Agency“With Juice, we want to confirm there’s liquid water in these moons, confirm their heat sources. Testing and modeling of Jupiter’s radiation belts allowed engineers to prepare for what Juice will encounter. Given the eventual distance between the spacecraft and Earth, it will take 45 minutes to send a one-way signal to Juice.

☆ Europe’s Juice Mission Will Launch to Jupiter and Its Moons: How to Watch
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Jonathan O Callaghan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jupiter, king of the solar system, will be getting new visitors. The robotic mission that will leave for Jupiter on Thursday is Juice, or the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, from the European Space Agency, or ESA, aiming to closely study three of Jupiter’s satellites: Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. When will the launch happen, and how can I watch it? Juice is scheduled to launch on April 13 at 8:15 a.m. Eastern time. ESA will stream the launch live on its website and on its YouTube channel.

☆ Uganda’s anti-gay bill is the latest and worst to target LGBTQ Africans
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Aditi Bhandari | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +14 min

Same-sex activity in Africa is punishable by … Map of the 32 African countries where same-sex activity is illegal. Same-sex activity in Africa … Map of the 22 African countries where same-sex activity is legal. In 1993, Guinea-Bissau became the first African country to legalise LGBTQ activity when it adopted a new Penal Code that didn’t include any laws criminalising it. Country Constitutional protection Broad protections Employment Hate crime Incitement Marriage or civil union Adoption Angola No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Botswana No No Yes No No No No Cape Verde No No Yes Yes No No No Gabon No No No No No No No Guinea-Bissau No No No No No No No Lesotho No No No No No No No Mozambique No No Yes No No No No Sao Tome and Principe No No Yes Yes No No No Seychelles No No Yes No No No No South Africa Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes YesNote: Broad protections include laws protecting against discrimination in at least 3 of 4 categories: the provision of goods and services, housing, healthcare and education. Namibia and Mauritius criminalise same-sex activity, but around 35% of respondents said they would dislike having a gay neighbour.

☆ South Africa revokes 'state of disaster' declared over power crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Kopano Gumbi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The state of disaster gave the government additional powers to respond to the crisis, including by permitting emergency procurement procedures with fewer bureaucratic delays and less oversight. The newly appointed electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said some crisis measures would remain in place. "The state is withdrawing the national state of disaster in response to OUTA's legal action challenging its rationality," said OUTA, a non-profit organisation that focuses on fighting government corruption and tax abuses. REUTERS/Esa AlexanderOUTA said the disaster regulations would have enabled corruption and that the crisis could be managed using existing laws. President Cyril Ramaphosa invoked disaster regulations on Feb. 9 to fight a paralysing power crisis that has included daily rolling power cuts by Eskom.

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