Nearby black hole Cyg X-1 more massive than thought

New research suggests that the famous black hole Cygnus X-1 – first black hole ever detected and one of the closest to Earth – is farther away and much more massive than previously believed. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/cygnus-x-1-black-hole-more-massive-farther…

Robots Are Speeding Up the Most Boring Job In Astronomy

sciencehabit writes: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has, for more than 20 years, pioneered collecting spectra from millions of astronomical objects, from nearby stars to supermassive black holes. But this year, the survey is making a change: Instead of employing a small team of technicians for the daily chore of plugging optical fibers into preprepared plates so that — when…

Our world is losing ice at a record rate

The rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet has been speeding up, with 65% since the 1990s, a survey of global ice loss using European Space Agency satellite data reveals. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/esa-satellites-show-record-rate-ice-loss…