NASA

Christina Koch, Alexander Skvortsov and Luca Parmitano assisted after their landing (Image NASA TV)

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A little while ago astronauts Luca Parmitano and Christina Koch and cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft, that landed in Kazakhstan. Parmitano and Skvortsov spent a bit more than 6 months on the International Space Station, where they arrived on July 20, 2019 as part of Expedition 60, while Christina Koch arrived on March 15, 2019 as part of Expedition 59 and accomplished a long mission.

The Spitzer space telescope being prepared (Photo NASA)

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NASA’s Spitzer space telescope ended its mission with its final shutdown, which happened when in the USA it was afternoon. Launched on August 15, 2003, it’s been an instrument crucial for infrared astronomy in studies of various kinds ranging from those of solar system’s objects to those of distant galaxies passing through those of exoplanets.

La navicella spaziale Crew Dragon al decollo per il test di interruzione d'emergenza del lancio (Immagine cortesia SpaceX)

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SpaceX has just completed the In-Flight Abort Test of one of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, the version of Dragon 2 produced for the transport of astronauts. A Falcon 9 rocket was deliberately blown up at the moment of maximum dynamic pressure, Max q in jargon, to test that the the systems which in a normal launch are used to rescue the crew aboard the Crew Dragon work properly.

New details of the center of the Milky Way observed by the SOFIA flying telescope

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An article submitted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the initial results of an investigation about the center of the Milky Way conducted using the SOFIA flying telescope to capture infrared details never seen before and therefore useful for mapping an area 600 light years across. A team of researchers integrated those observations with data previously collected using NASA’s Spitzer space telescope and ESA’s Herschel space observatory obtaining a map of the center of the galaxy useful for example to understand where gas is concentrated which can lead to the new stars’ formation, how some of the most massive stars in the Milky Way formed in a relatively small region or where materials are likely to be devoured by the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

The exoplanet TOI 700 d is the first discovered by the TESS space telescope in its system's habitable zone

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Three articles submitted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal” report various aspects of a study of the TOI 700 system and the discovery of three exoplanets thanks to the observations made by NASA’s TESS space telescope. Several researchers collaborated to confirm the existence of the three exoplanets and to study their characteristics, in particular TOI 700 d, the outermost and the only one of the three to orbit in the habitable zone of its system. Its existence was also confirmed using the Spitizer space telescope making it the first rocky exoplanet discovered by TESS in the habitable zone.