When a supermassive black hole consumes a star, it doesn’t just swallow it whole. It shreds the star, ripping it apart bit by bit before consuming the remains. It’s a messy process known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). Astronomers occasionally catch a glimpse of TDEs, and one recent one has helped solve a mystery about a type of transient X-ray source.
Space News & Blog Articles
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New Artemis moon camera gets 1st field test (photos)
Recently, an international team took the HULC moon camera out for a test drive in lunar-like conditions to improve the camera's design for Artemis moon missions.
'It was 3 hours of magic': Spectacular auroras thrill stargazers across the world (and internet) as intense geomagnetic storm batters Earth (photos)
A powerful geomagnetic storm illuminated auroras that lit the skies over Earth on Thursday (Oct. 9) after X 2 solar flare that erupted from the sunspot AR 3848 on Tuesday (Oct. 8) evening.
Earth from Space: Hardap Dam, Namibia
Image: Resembling a Martian-like surface, this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image shows part of the Hardap region in south-central Namibia on the western edge of the Kalahari Desert.
Satellites are Tracking the Ongoing Sea Level Rise Swamping Pacific Island Nations
The small island nations of the South Pacific are facing the harsh reality of sea level rise. Within 50 years they will be swamped by rising seas linked to climate change. That’s part of a stark forecast from a sea level change science team at NASA and leading universities.
Gaia space telescope discovers 55 'runaway' careening away from stellar cluster at 80 times the speed of sound
Using the Gaia space telescope, astronomers have observed 55 massive stars ejected from their home star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud at speeds equivalent to 80 times the speed of sound.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is being squeezed, Hubble Telescope finds — and nobody knows why (video)
The Hubble Space Telescope has seen Jupiter's Great Red Spot oscillating in width as it drifts around the planet. Could this be related to its overall shrinking?
Exoplanet Discovered in a Binary System Could Explain Why Red Dwarfs Form Massive Planets
In recent years, the number of known extrasolar planets (aka. exoplanets) has grown exponentially. To date, 5,799 exoplanets have been confirmed in 4,310 star systems, with thousands more candidates awaiting confirmation. What has been particularly interesting to astronomers is how M-type (red dwarf) stars appear to be very good at forming rocky planets. In particular, astronomers have detected many gas giants and planets that are several times the mass of Earth (Super-Earths) orbiting these low-mass, cooler stars.
Hopes dim for another bright October comet after Tsuchinshan-ATLAS
There's been talk of another spectacular comet putting on a show in our sky after Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't look like the newcomer will deliver.
Solar storm bombarding Earth now may reach 'extreme' levels, sparking auroras down to Alabama and straining hurricane-weakened power grids
A severe solar storm sparked by an intense flare from the sun could reach "extreme" levels as it bombards Earth, NOAA officials warned Thursday (Oct. 10).
NASA secures Europa Clipper probe as Hurricane Milton sweeps over Kennedy Space Center (photos)
The Europa Clipper probe rode out the arrival of Hurricane Milton Oct. 9 inside a SpaceX hangar, as NASA's Kennedy Space Center experienced strong winds.
Monstrous Hurricane Milton captured in 4K video by new Sen cameras on ISS
New cameras aboard the International Space Station captured stunning 4k views of Hurricane Milton as it churned across the Gulf of Mexico.
Chinese astronauts zoom in on their nation's launch sites from orbit (video)
In a new video, China's Shenzhou 18 astronauts zoom in on their nation's launch sites from the Tiangong space station in low Earth orbit.
Hera takes flight: Didymos, here we come
The day began with an 85% chance that bad weather would cause a launch delay: it ended with ESA’s Hera mission successfully in space and en route to the Didymos binary asteroid system.
Post-Prime Day telescope deal: 34% off the Celestron NexStar 4SE
The Celestron NexStar 4SE is one of the best telescopes on the market and now it's at its lowest price in years, 34% off post-Prime Day.
What's inside the moon? Gravity measurements suggest a layer of molten rock
In between the moon's solid core and external surface may swirl a partially molten layer of rock.
Scientists discover bright 'sungrazer' comet that could be visible with the naked eye this month — after Tsuchinshan–ATLAS
Newfound comet C/2024 S1 will light up Earth's skies in late October before a super close slingshot around the sun.
Space-made weld scrutinised in ESA lab
ESA engineers have focused microscopes, hardness testers and an X-ray computer aided tomography machine onto a special aluminium weld just a single centimetre across – the historic result of the very first autonomous welding to be performed in space, and the first ESA has been involved with.
Phew! No 'doomsday' asteroids hide in famous broken comet's debris stream
The Taurid Meteoroid Stream, responsible for two November meteor showers and possibly the Tunguska and Chelyabinsk impacts, probably doesn't hide a civilization-killing asteroid, a new study finds.
Most Mars Meteorites Came From Five Craters
Meteorites strike Earth every day. It’s estimated that about 100 – 300 metric tonnes of material strike our planet every year. Most of it consists of sand-grain sized dust that burns up in the atmosphere, but each year a few thousand will reach Earth’s surface.
NASA Reveals the Mind-Boggling Scale of Hurricane Milton seen from Space
We often talk about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot quite candidly but forget that hurricanes can be devastating, destructive forces here on Earth. Hurricane Milton is a reminder of the awful effects here on Earth. It came out of nowhere, appearing in the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm and two days later was a category 5 hurricane. It tracked a course and hit land near Siesta Key in Florida. NASA have been tracking the storm from space, recording high sea temperatures that fuelled the storm allowing it to grow. Images have been released from the ISS showing the sheer enormity of the hurricane.
