Ever heard a star scream? Astrophysicists have detected the oscillating signal that heralds the last gasps of a star being sucked up by a previously dormant supermassive black hole.
The "screams," scientifically known as "quasiperiodic oscillations," occurred steadily every 200 seconds, but occasionally disappeared. Such signals have often been detected at smaller black holes and they’re believed to emanate from material about to be sucked in.
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There’s a reason we’ve sent a rover called "Curiosity" up to Mars: Astronomers want to prove the theory that microorganisms on an asteroid from Mars that crashed into the Earth billions of years ago may have started life here. We do know that fragments from distant planets might have been the "sprouts of life" on this one. Mars may now be dead (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show), but we may live on as the progeny of that planet.
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It may turn out to be possible to actually build a warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel (the way people traveled in TV’s Star Trek).
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A team of amateur astronomers have tracked down the X-37B spacecraft, launched on a 15-month clandestine mission by NASA in April ril from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This unmanned, reusable spacecraft has been developed by the US military. But why is it a secret? In 2010, an identical unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth after 7 months in orbit.
Precise objectives and cost of the program are classified, and some astronomers have speculated that it could be part of a new generation of spy satellites, or a step towards weaponizing space.
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