The turn of the year is celebrated around the planet by different cultures, but Brazil and the world are still in mourning for the death of King Pelé. One of the tributes came, unusually, from NASA, which published the image of a galaxy with the colors green, yellow and blue, defended by the soccer legend.
This homage is one of the astronomical news of the week, and you can find a summary of all of them below.
NASA honors Pelé with green, yellow and blue galaxy
NASA paid tribute to the football legend, who died on December 29, 2022, aged 82. In a publication, the US space agency shared an image of a galaxy with the colors of the Brazilian flag.
This spiral galaxy is in the Sculptor constellation and has yellow and green stars at its core, as well as blue stars orbiting in the galaxy’s outer spiral arm.
There is something strange about this black hole
A supermassive black hole ate a star, and maybe the meal didn’t “go down well.” It’s just that the event created a corona around the object, but something is missing: a relativistic jet.
Coronas and jets have always been considered mutually intrinsic phenomena, that is, they should always appear together. But the AT2021ehb event (the feast held by the black hole) was a very unexpected exception. Scientists now want to understand why the plasma jet did not form and, mainly, they will have to reformulate the theory about the formation of jets and coronas.
winter on mars
NASA has published a video with several images of the Martian winter, where various formations of water ice and CO2 embellish the landscape.
Sceneries formed on Mars during this epoch take on curious shapes and fascinating patterns. Seen from above, some glaciers have leaf formations, dark grains, “spiders”, and much more.
The rescue in case astronauts are trapped by a leak on the ISS
The leak in the ISS’s coolant tank still worries space agencies Roscosmos and NASA, as one of the Soyuz spacecraft that will bring three astronauts back to Earth may no longer be usable.
If this is indeed the case, NASA plans to use one of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. This possibility presents some complications, so the main plan is still to verify the conditions of the Soyuz until mid-January.
Earth seen through the “eyes” of the Chinese space station
The panoramic camera on the Tiangong space station, installed in 2021, captured incredible images of our planet, passing through different locations and revealing details of our cosmic home.
The video also highlights the most recent activities carried out at the Chinese station, such as Tiangong’s own complete assembly, completed in November, when it received the last missing module.
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