There is a monster black hole in our backyard (astronomically speaking). Life could survive underground on Mars for hundreds of millions of years. Starlink has been hacked and now works as GPS. Bad news for Arecibo.
Enjoy the video version of all the latest space and astronomy news in our latest episode of Space Bites. Everything you need to know about what happened last week in a handy bite-sized video format.
The closest black hole ever discovered
A monster black hole has been discovered relatively close to us. It’s only 1550 light years away, which is our backyard, astronomically speaking. What’s exciting is how it was discovered. Astronomers looked at Gaia’s data on stars and their motion. Among them, they found a star that looked like a binary system. But there was no visible companion. Further analysis revealed it to be a 12-solar-mass black hole. So it’s an interesting new technique that may reveal more black holes in the future.
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Read more about the black hole in “our backyard”.
Youth could have killed all life on Mars
There is an interesting paradox regarding life on Mars. New studies suggest the following scenario. If there had been life on Mars in its early days, when the planet was humid and warm, it might have died out. By producing CO2, methane and other gases, it could have weakened the greenhouse effect. So, by replacing hydrogen with these gases, they made the planet colder, which ultimately led to the loss of its atmosphere and therefore living conditions.
Learn more about the paradox of life on Mars.
Starlink hacked to be used as a GPS alternative
Researchers managed to hack Starlink and use it as a positioning system. All without any consent from SpaceX. By analyzing the signals from the satellites, they were able to reverse engineer and extract temporal data. By combining this information with the positions of satellites, which are well known and open to the general public, it has effectively turned into an alternative to GPS. Accuracy is about 30 meters. It can be improved, if SpaceX wanted to cooperate. But whether they will want to do so remains to be determined.
Lucy obtains a portrait of the Earth and the Moon
Whenever a spacecraft makes a gravity-assisted flyby of Earth, it’s the perfect opportunity to test its optics and science instruments. During her recent flyby, Lucy, bound for Trojan, captured this image of planet Earth while it was about 620,000 km away. He also captured an image of the Earth and the Moon in the same photo, showing how far apart they are.
Learn more about Lucy’s flyover.
A star blows up a planet’s atmosphere
We know that red dwarf stars can emit powerful flares, but in the case of one system, the results have been catastrophic. Astronomers have studied the Earth-sized planet GJ 1252b, which orbits a red dwarf star every 12 hours. They discovered that the star’s intense flares were scouring the planet’s atmosphere. This could be the case for many other exoplanetary systems, but there is good news. If the worlds are farther from the star, their atmosphere could hold under this dam, protecting life until the star settles down.
Learn more about red dwarf planets.
Arecibo will not be rebuilt
It’s official. The famous Arecibo radar telescope will not be rebuilt. It is a sad but expected moment. But still, Arecibo left a huge legacy both in science, as new studies are always published with his data, as well as in popular culture.
Learn more about the future of Arecibo.
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