An image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows LEDA 60847, a group of interacting galaxies. The largest galaxy has an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a supermassive black hole surrounded by materials that are heated to the point of generating the electromagnetic emissions behind its luminosity. This galaxy is interacting with its neighbors and in a very long time, they will form a single larger galaxy.
An image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows a part of the star-forming region cataloged as N79 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way’s satellite dwarf galaxies. It’s considered a sort of younger version of the Tarantula Nebula but astronomers believe that its star formation has been twice as efficient over the last 500,000 years. The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) was used to capture never-before-seen mid-infrared details of N79 that will be invaluable in improving our understanding of star formation processes.
An article published in the journal “Science” reports the discovery of a compact object within the globular cluster cataloged as NGC 1851 whose nature is uncertain because mass estimates place it on the border between a neutron star and a black hole. A team of researchers used observations conducted with the MeerKAT radio telescope to identify traces of a binary system composed of a so-called millisecond pulsar and the mysterious compact object. The estimated mass for this object is between 2.09 and 2.71 times the Sun’s, so it could be a massive neutron star or a small black hole.
It was the night between Friday and Saturday in Japan when the Japanese space agency JAXA’s SLIM lander attempted to land on the Moon but things got complicated. Only after a couple of hours, a press conference was held in which it was announced that the Moon landing was successful but there were some problems that could shorten the mission if SLIM fails to recharge its batteries. Meanwhile, Japan has become the fifth nation to put a robotic vehicle on the Moon.
A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft was launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on the Axiom Mission 3, or simply Ax-3, mission. After about twelve minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage. It will spend about 14 days in orbit, almost all of which will be docked at the International Space Station. It also serves commercial purposes in a collaboration between SpaceX, Axiom Space, and various companies and national space agencies to access the Station for the purpose of conducting tasks useful for the development of new technologies and for scientific research.
