In 1971, the Soviet Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to land on Mars, though it only lasted a couple of minutes before failing. More than 50 years later, it’s still there at Terra Sirenum. The HiRISE camera NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have imaged some of its hardware, inadvertently taking part in what … Read more
This image gazes toward the heart of the Milky Way, in the direction of its core. Credit: ESO/S. Guisard (www.eso.org/~sguisard) Veiled in gas and clouds, the Milky Way’s center does not easily give up secrets. The initial detection of its supermassive black hole (SMBH) decades ago posed as many riddles as it solved, including the … Read more
When Oumuamua traversed our Solar System in 2017 it was the first confirmed Interstellar Object (ISO) to do so. Then in 2019, Comet 2l/Borisov did the same thing. These are the only two confirmed ISOs to visit our Solar System. Many more ISOs must have visited in our Solar System’s long history, and many more … Read more