Monday, July 14

Amazing Facts

DOGE personnel conducting spending review at NASA
18Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

DOGE personnel conducting spending review at NASA

Personnel from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are on-site at NASA to review the agency’s payments. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), working under a mandate from President Donald Trump to reduce government spending, has its next target: NASA. The space agency told FLYING on Friday that DOGE personnel are already on-site to conduct a review of its payments. “We are a federal agency; we are going to have DOGE come,” said Janet Petro, acting NASA administrator, speaking at the annual Commercial Space Conference on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. “They’re going to look, similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies, at our payments and what money has gone out.” Petro did not specify what DOGE will be looking ...
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Cookies, Cream, and Crumbling Cores
18Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

Cookies, Cream, and Crumbling Cores

Explore This SectionMars HomeScienceOverviewObjectivesInstruments Highlights Exploration GoalsNews and FeaturesMultimediaPerseverance Raw ImagesImagesVideosAudioMore ResourcesMars MissionsMars Sample ReturnMars Perseverance RoverMars Curiosity RoverMAVENMars Reconnaissance OrbiterMars OdysseyMore Mars MissionsPerseverance HomeMission OverviewRover ComponentsMars Rock SamplesWhere is Perseverance?Ingenuity Mars HelicopterMission Updates 3 min readCookies, Cream, and Crumbling Cores NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover captured this image of the intriguing texture of the rock sample dubbed “Serpentine Lake.” Perseverance acquired this image using its SHERLOC WATSON camera, located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. The SHERLOC instrument (Scanning Habitable Environments w...
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‘Star Trek: Section 31’ got us thinking… Should you have to do your homework before you watch a movie?
17Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

‘Star Trek: Section 31’ got us thinking… Should you have to do your homework before you watch a movie?

Let's start with a small thought experiment. It's Saturday night and you spot a new "Star Trek" movie on your Paramount+ homepage. You're not a hardcore fan but you enjoyed "The Next Generation", "The Wrath of Khan" and the JJ Abrams reboot. You're also drawn in by the fact this interstellar version of "Mission: Impossible" is headlined by Michelle Yeoh, who starred alongside James Bond in "Tomorrow Never Dies", recently appeared in "Wicked", and won herself an Oscar for "Everything Everywhere All at Once". That's got to be worth a try, right?MINOR SPOILERS FOR "STAR TREK: SECTION 31" AHEAD"Star Trek: Section 31"'s opening flashback introduces a young woman (played by Miku Martineau) who murders her family to prove she's worthy of leading a sadistic entity known as the Terran Empire. Weird...
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How generative AI touches journalism
17Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

How generative AI touches journalism

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at lightning speed in the past couple of years, creating disruption in many industries. Newsrooms are no exception. A new report published today finds that news audiences and journalists alike are concerned about how news organisations are – and could be – using generative AI such as chatbots, image, audio and video generators, and similar tools. The report draws on three years of interviews and focus group research into generative AI and journalism in Australia and six other countries (United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and France). Only 25% of our news audience participants were confident they had encountered generative AI in journalism. About 50% were unsure or suspected they had. This suggests a ...
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The Winter Triangle meets the ‘Mars Triangle’ in the night sky this month
17Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

The Winter Triangle meets the ‘Mars Triangle’ in the night sky this month

We're now just past the midpoint of astronomical winter — that moment marking the midway point between December's winter solstice and March's vernal equinox. That moment took place at 4:11 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 3. And as darkness falls this week, we have what many refer to as the "Winter Triangle" dominating the southeast sky.This large, nearly equilateral triangle is composed of three of the brightest stars in the sky, each belonging to its own constellation. The brightest is the bluish-white star Sirius (magnitude -1.45), in Canis Major the Big Dog; the brightest of all naked-eye stars. Next in brightness is yellow-white Procyon (magnitude +0.37) in Canis Minor, the Little Dog. The name Procyon is derived from the Ancient Greek, meaning "before the dog", since it precedes the "Dog St...
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New fish species named for Princess Mononoke
17Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

New fish species named for Princess Mononoke

Scientists have named a new fish species for the character San (also called Princess Mononoke) in the animated movie Princess Mononoke, thanks to their similarly painted cheeks. Image via Pensoft/ Fish: Branchiostegus sanae. Huang et al (CC-BY 4.0). San: “Princess Mononoke” (1997)/ Hayao Miyazaki/ Studio Ghibli. New fish species named for animated character On February 11, 2025, a team of Chinese scientists said they discovered a new species of fish in a seafood market in China. The fish has distinct stripes on its cheeks. This characteristic reminded the scientists of the character San (who is also called Princess Mononoke) in the Studio Ghibli animated film Princess Mononoke. So they’ve named the fish in honor of San. The researchers published their peer-reviewed study in the journal Zoo...
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Some planet-forming stars never ‘grow up’ and lose their ‘Peter Pan’ disks
17Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

Some planet-forming stars never ‘grow up’ and lose their ‘Peter Pan’ disks

Planet formation around low-mass stars may be suffering from Peter Pan syndrome. While previous observations and models have suggested that a disk of planetary building blocks should be 'fully grown' - having burned through its world-making material - in about 10 million years, a new kid on the block is proving them wrong, weighing in at roughly 30 million years.Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have probed one of the previously-identified Peter Pan disks around a low-mass star. But instead of seeing a disk that had transitioned out of planet formation, they found a disk rich in hydrocarbons, with chemical signatures never seen before in such a dated disk. This extended lifetime could have important implications for planet formation, at least around...
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Speediest exoplanet found near Milky Way center?
16Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

Speediest exoplanet found near Milky Way center?

View larger. | Artist’s visualization of stars near the center of the Milky Way. The longer the trail of each star, the faster it is moving. Scientists have discovered what might be the speediest exoplanet system yet. It’s depicted with a long bright trail at center. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC). Stars move around the center of our Milky Way galaxy just like planets move around stars, bringing their exoplanets along with them. How fast can they travel? The fastest-known exoplanet system might be near the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers first discovered it back in 2011 and have now re-observed it. The system consists of a possible red dwarf star and super-Neptune exoplanet, 24,000 light-years away. They are moving at an incredible 1.2 million miles per hour (1.9...
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Lightning strikes on Earth can trigger electron showers
16Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

Lightning strikes on Earth can trigger electron showers

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Alexander Krivenyshev from Manhattan, New York, captured these spectacular lightning strikes on June 26, 2024. Thank you, Alexander! A new study says lightning strikes on Earth can trigger electron showers from beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The Van Allen radiation belts are donut shaped regions of high-energy particles that circle Earth. Lightning strikes on Earth can trigger electron showers from these belts, according to a new study. This occurs only after geomagnetic storms, which disturb the radiation belts. By Lauren Blum, University of Colorado Boulder Lightning strikes link weather on Earth and weather in space According to new research, lightning strikes on Earth can send showers of particles raining down from radiation belts surrounding our p...
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Why won’t the Blaze Star explode? (and how YOU can see it when it does)
16Feb By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments
Amazing Facts

Why won’t the Blaze Star explode? (and how YOU can see it when it does)

The Blaze Star isn’t one star but 2. It’s a binary system with a white dwarf and red giant. The Blaze Star’s white dwarf has built up material on its surface, siphoned off from the red giant star. Periodically, it “can’t take no more” and explodes, about every 80 years. Despite the powerful explosion, the dwarf itself remains intact. And once things settle down, the Blaze Star (T Corona Borealis) will begin the decades-long preparation for future cosmic fireworks. Image via NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio. Have you ever heard of the Blaze Star? It’s a star in the constellation Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, that was supposed to go nova last year. Well, we’re still waiting. But when it finally does erupt, it’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime show in our night sky. The eagerly a...
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