For decades, astronomical theorists have told us that a black hole’s powerful gravity would warp the space around it. This new visualization from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is the best yet at showing exactly how. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/black-hole-visualization-from-side-schnittman-goddard…
Tag: Maryland
When did humans start altering Earth?
The ArchaeoGlobe Project assessed knowledge on human land use over the past 10,000 years, through the contributions of more than 200 archaeologists. It concluded that, by 3,000 years ago, most of Earth was already transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/when-humans-start-altering-planet-earth-anthropocene…
Walmart Sues Tesla Over Fires At Stores Fitted With Its Solar Panels
Walmart filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Tesla accusing the company of supplying solar panels that were responsible for fires at about seven of its stores. Reuters reports: The fires destroyed significant amounts of store merchandise and required substantial repairs, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket losses, Walmart said in the lawsuit. As of November 2018, no fewer than…
35 Million-Year-Old Asteroid Left a Trail of Destruction Across the Eastern US
schwit1 shares a report from Space.com: About 35 million years ago, an asteroid traveling nearly 144,000 mph (231,000 km/h) smashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the modern-day town of Cape Charles, Virginia. The space rock vaporized instantly, but its impact triggered a gargantuan tsunami, cast up a monsoon of shattered rocks and molten glass that spanned hundreds of miles and carved…
Meet WASP-121b, a hot ‘heavy metal’ exoplanet
For the first time, heavy metal gases like magnesium and iron have been detected floating away from an exoplanet, a planet orbiting a distant sun. Why? Because the planet – which is about as big as Jupiter – is orbiting perilously close to its star. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/wasp-121b-exoplanet-football-shaped-heavy-metal…
IAU approves 2nd round of names for Pluto features
New Horizons provided what will be the only close-up images of Pluto many of us will see in our lifetimes. The new feature names from the International Astronomical Union recognize the mission’s forerunners in Earth and space mythology and history. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/iau-approves-new-pluto-feature-names-2019…
Cambridge, Massachusetts Moves To Ban Facial Recognition
Citing threats to free speech and civil rights, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts on Tuesday moved to prohibit local government from using facial recognition. Three other cities in the country have already instituted such bans over concerns that the technology is biased and violates basic human rights. Gizmodo reports: In December of last year, the Cambridge City Council passed the Surveillance…
First of two Van Allen Probes spacecraft ceases operations
On July 19, 2019, at 1:27 p.m. EDT, mission operators sent a shutdown command to one of two Van Allen Probes spacecraft, known as spacecraft B, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, or APL, in Laurel, Maryland. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-van-allen-probes-spacecraft-ceases.html…
Permission-Greedy Apps Delayed Android 6 Upgrade So They Could Harvest More User Data
Android app developers intentionally delayed updating their applications to work on top of Android 6.0, so they could continue to have access to an older permission-requesting mechanism that granted them easy access to large quantities of user data, research published by the University of Maryland last month has revealed. From a report: The central focus of this research was the release…
Today in 2015: New Horizons at Pluto
The small, fast-moving New Horizons spacecraft is likely to be the only Pluto mission in the lifetimes of many of us. It changed forever the way we on Earth perceive this outermost world and its moons. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/july-4-2015-new-horizons-at-pluto…