NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Set to Explore Jupiter’s Icy Moon NASA is preparing to launch a spacecraft to Jupiter’s moon Europa, considered one of the most promising locations for finding life beyond Earth. Europa, encased in ice, is thought to contain a vast underground ocean, which makes it a prime target for studying habitability. Europa Clipper: A Groundbreaking Mission The Europa Clipper spacecraft, powered by solar energy, will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch is scheduled for Monday at 12:06 p.m. ET, following a delay caused by Hurricane Milton. Once launched,…
Author: Kanika Sharma
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A Black Hole’s Stellar Destruction Leads to New Discoveries NASA & ISRO have uncovered new insights into black hole activity. Their combined efforts, using space observatories like Chandra, Hubble, NICER, Swift, and AstroSat, revealed a black hole destroying a star and using the debris to pummel another celestial object. This discovery by NASA & ISRO offers answers to two long-standing mysteries in astronomy, connecting phenomena that were previously only speculated upon. Stellar Wreckage in Action In 2019, astronomers detected the destruction of a star that wandered too close to a massive black hole. The black hole’s immense gravitational pull shredded…
Investors Eye AI Payoffs as S&P 500 Profit Growth Slows Investors are keen to see if artificial intelligence (AI) investments are starting to yield returns for S&P 500 companies. This focus arises as analysts predict slower profit growth compared to the previous quarter. Slower Growth in S&P 500 Earnings Despite the expected slowdown, S&P 500 earnings are projected to have risen by 5.3% year-over-year, a decline from the 13.2% growth observed in the second quarter. Technology and communication services sectors are expected to show the highest growth, according to data from LSEG. Financial Giants Start the Earnings Season The earnings…
PSLV-C37 Upper Stage Re-Enters Earth’s Atmosphere After Historic 2017 Launch The upper stage of the PSLV-C37 rocket, which set a record by launching 104 satellites in one mission, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on 6 October 2024. This re-entry signifies an important milestone in space debris management. It adheres to international guidelines and highlights the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) commitment to sustainable space operations. Record-Breaking Launch and Mission Overview On 15 February 2017, ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C37) made history by deploying 104 satellites in a single launch. The primary payload was the Cartosat-2D satellite, along with 103 co-passenger satellites.…
Foxconn to Build World’s Largest Facility for Nvidia Superchips in Mexico Foxconn is set to construct the world’s largest manufacturing facility dedicated to assembling Nvidia’s GB200 superchips in Mexico, senior executives at the Taiwanese company announced on Tuesday, October 8. This move aims to support Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell family computing platform. Foxconn Capitalises on AI Boom Renowned as the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and Apple’s primary iPhone assembler, is now leveraging the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The company is assembling servers that are crucial for processing AI workloads, positioning itself at the forefront of the AI…
Hera Asteroid Probe Begins Two-Year Journey to Dimorphos Europe’s Hera asteroid probe launched from Florida on a SpaceX rocket on Monday, embarking on a two-year mission to study an asteroid that NASA’s DART spacecraft previously deflected off course. The mission aims to deepen our understanding of how to protect Earth from potential asteroid threats. Mission Overview: Revisiting the DART Impact Site The Hera mission will revisit the Dimorphos asteroid, a small moonlet orbiting a larger near-Earth asteroid called Didymos. The visit comes two years after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally crashed into Dimorphos. This collision was part of…
International Astronomers Discover Record-Breaking Plasma Jets Using GMRT A team of international astronomers has used the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune, India, to discover the largest pair of plasma jets ever observed emanating from a supermassive black hole. These colossal jets span a staggering 23 million light years from end to end, making them more than 100 times the size of our Milky Way galaxy. A Landmark Discovery in Astrophysics The discovery, published in the prestigious journal Nature, sets a new record for the longest supermassive black hole jets ever found. Prof Yogesh Wadadekar from the National Centre…
TESS Discovers Record-Breaking Triple-Star System with Extremely Tight Orbit NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has detected a new record-breaking triple-star system, designated TIC 290061484. Located around 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, this system has such a compact configuration that it could fit comfortably within the distance between the Sun and its closest planet, Mercury. A Remarkably Compact Star System TIC 290061484 comprises two stars that orbit each other every 1.8 Earth days, while a third star orbits this pair every 25 Earth days. This tight configuration makes it the most compact triple-star system discovered to date. The…
Proba-3 Mission Completes Final Testing Before Shipment to India The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Proba-3 mission has successfully completed its final test before being shipped to its launch site in India. This double-satellite mission, designed to create an artificial solar eclipse, received commands from its science team and transmitted images back, mirroring its operational mode once in orbit. Advanced Testing for Complex Mission Operations Proba-3’s recent System Validation Test was carried out by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels. During this test, the science team sent payload operation requests to ESA’s mission control centre at the European Space Security…
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory Captures Powerful X-Class Solar Flare NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observed a strong solar flare peaking at 8:18 a.m. ET on 3 October 2024. The observatory, which continuously monitors the Sun, captured a striking image of the flare, showcasing the intense burst of energy. Visual Impact of the Solar Flare The captured image reveals the Sun in vivid red and gold hues, with several darker and brighter spots scattered across its surface. The centre of the image features an extremely bright white and yellow flash, radiating energy in multiple directions, resembling the shape of a star.…
