Black Holes

The year 2019 saw several advances in our understanding of black holes.

It also saw the first direct imaging of a black hole.

Christina Koch

NASA Astronaut Christina Koch has broken Peggy Whitson's space endurance record.

She is due home February 6.

Hypersonic Weapons

Russia says it has operational hypersonic weapons that can defeat missile defense systems.

China and the U. S. are also working on such weapons.

Long March 5

China launched its huge Long March 5 rocket yesterday.

It was the first such launch since a 2017 failure and subsequent redesign.

ISS

According to reports, a recent North Korean missile test narrowly missed ISS.

If those reports are accurate, a close call could not have been totally accidental.

Apollo

Apollo just keeps on giving.

NASA is releasing lunar soil samples collected by Apollo astronauts to a new generation of scientists armed with knowledge and technology barely imagined fifty years ago.

UFOs

According to reports citing declassified British files, both China and Russia have lost pilots who were chasing UFOs.

There are also stories of lost American pilots.

Glitch

Soon after launch yesterday morning. a software problem put Boeing's Starliner capsule in the wrong orbit.  It will not dock with ISS.

Starliner is now scheduled to land in New Mexico Sunday.

Starliner

Boeing's Starliner successfully launched to ISS this morning.

Next year, it's scheduled to begin carrying astronauts.

Yutu 2

China's Yutu 2 rover has set a record for the longest operating rover on the Moon.

It has been operating for 11 months.

Life

A new study suggests life in the outter Solar System would be unrelated to life on Earth.

Two independent developments of life in the same solar system would strongly argue life is common in the universe.

Martian Water

A new study by NASA has produced a global map of water distribution on Mars.

The map will be used to help pick landing sites for human missions.

UFO

Canadian UFOlogist Chris Rutkowski has donated 30,000 UFO documents to the University of Manitoba at Winnipeg.

The collection includes many documents related to the famed Falcon Lake Incident.

Space Force

President Trump signed orders creating the U. S. Space Force this week.

It's an acknowledgement that space is fast becoming a major potential war theater.

AI

NASA is using artificial intelligence techniques to search for ET life and asteroids.

Machine learning and big data mining help scientists ferret out useful information.

Neutron Star

Scientists have found a neutron star with a mysteriously twisted magnetic field.

Sunspots, on a far smaller scale, are the result of similar twisting..

Odo

Rene' Auberjonois, the actor who played Odo in STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, died Sunday.

He was 79.

Tiger Stripes

New research into the so-called tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus suggests Saturn's gravity sttetches the moon and have opened the stripes, which are fissures in the surface.

Enceladus' famed geyser plumes erupt from the tiger stripes.

FAST

China's FAST telescope, the world's largest single dish radio telescope, has nearly completed three years of testing.

In addition to traditional radio astronomy, FAST will also be used for SETI searches.

Apollo 17

Forty-seven years ago today, Apollo 17 launched to the Moon.

No human has been beyond low Earth orbit since.

Dorothy Catherine Fontana

Writer/producer D. C. Fontana has died.  She was 80.

Fontana was probably best known for her work on the various iterations of STAR TREK.

Dust Towers

New research suggests  huge dust towers on Mars-- storms similar to Earthly thunderstorms-- could have played a part in the Martian atmosphere losing irs water vapor.

The theory is that dust towers lift water vapor high into the atmosphere where it can escape into space.

Minimoon

Researchers think a recent fireball seen over Australia was a nunimoon entering Eaeth's atmosphere.

A minimoon is a body that temporarily orbits Earth.

The Universe

Most physicists think the universe is flat, but new data suggests it could be curved.

A flat universe would expand forever, whereas a curved one would contract into a Big Crunch.