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SOFIA Begins First Series of Science Flights from Germany
February 4, 2021 GMT
Universities Space Research Association Logo (PRNewsfoto/Universities Space Research Ass)
COLUMBIA, Md., Feb. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will conduct its first-ever series of observations from Germany in March 2021. Many of the observations seek to answer fundamental questions in astronomy, including how stars can transform galaxies and what is the origin of cosmic rays in the Milky Way galaxy.
SOFIA, a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, recently completed scheduled maintenance and telescope upgrades at Lufthansa Technik’s facility in Hamburg, Germany. Now, the observatory will take advantage of its proximity to science teams at the Max-Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy in Bonn and the University of Cologne, which operate
The 7 rocky TRAPPIST-1 planets may be made of similar stuff
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 is home to the largest group of roughly Earth-size planets ever found in a single stellar system.
Located about 40 light-years away, these seven rocky siblings provide an example of the tremendous variety of planetary systems that likely fill the universe.
A new study published in the Planetary Science Journal shows that the TRAPPIST-1 planets have remarkably similar densities.
That could mean they all contain about the same ratio of materials thought to compose most rocky planets, like iron, oxygen, magnesium, and silicon.
January 31, 2021
Astronomers announced this month that a new deep-field survey called JADES will be carried out with the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s much-anticipated successor. The Webb is due to launch later this year.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (in its eXtreme version) is the deepest view of the universe yet obtained … and will be, until JADES takes over. It stretches approximately 13 billion light-years and includes approximately 10,000 galaxies. It took 11.3 days for the Hubble Space Telescope to collect these ancient photons. Try downloading the largest version and zoom in on different sections. We’re seeing these galaxies as they were billions of years ago. How might they look today? Image via NASA/ ESA/ S. Beckwith (STSci)/ HUDF team.
In this photo, a scientist at the European Space Agency's Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory at the ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands works on essential mission work.