Space

NASA's Perseverance Rover took a photo of its broken companion, the Ingenuity helicopter, as it sat alone on a dune.

Astronomers have found a new Super-Earth orbiting an M-dwarf (red dwarf) star about 137 light-years away. The planet is named TOI-715b, and it's about 1.55 Earth's radius and is inside the star's habitable zone. There's also another planetary candidate in the system. It's Earth-sized, and if it's confirmed, it will be the smallest habitable zone planet TESS has discovered so far.

TOI-715 is an average red dwarf. It's about one-quarter the mass and about one-quarter the radius of our sun. TOI-715b is close to the star, and its tight orbit takes only 19 days to complete one trip around the dwarf star. Since red dwarfs are much dimmer than the sun, this puts the Super-Earth in the star's conservative habitable zone.

An asteroid as big as a skyscraper will pass within 1.7 million miles of Earth on Friday.

Don't worry: There's no chance of it hitting us since it will pass seven times the distance from Earth to the moon.

NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies estimates the space rock is between 690 feet and 1,575 feet (210 meters and 480 meters) across. That means the asteroid could be similar in size to New York City's Empire State Building or Chicago's Willis Tower.

Discovered in 2008, the asteroid is designated as 2008 OS7. It won't be back our way again until 2032, but it will be a much more distant encounter, staying 45 million miles (72 million kilometers) away.

Some great pics from Mars showing the crashed Beagle probe and back shell from Perseverance smashed on the surface, among a few other bits and pieces that have smashed, crashed or otherwise littered Mars

EDIT: Fixed link, sorry!

we'll find these aliens yet!

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/9722844

Today, ESA’s Science Programme Committee approved the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, the first scientific endeavour to detect and study gravitational waves from space.

This important step, formally called ‘adoption’, recognises that the mission concept and technology are sufficiently advanced, and gives the go-ahead to build the instruments and spacecraft. This work will start in January 2025 once a European industrial contractor has been chosen.

The video in this article brings me joy; it's just so good and fun to watch.

An asteroid discovered earlier this month will reach its closest point to Earth on Saturday (Jan. 27), when it will soar through the sky at a distance closer to us than the moon.

You can watch the airplane-size asteroid as it sails just 220,000 miles (354,000 kilometers) from Earth — more than nine tenths of the average distance between our planet and the moon — on a Virtual Telescope Project live feed from 12:15 p.m. EST. The flying space rock will reach its closest point to Earth at 12:30 p.m. EST, according to NASA.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/after-three-years-on-mars-nasas-ingenuity-helicopter-mission-ends/

Dang! So close.