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Webb Catches a Galaxy Being Starved, Red Dot Mystery Solved & ISS Leaks
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
NASA's Webb telescope has caught a black hole actively suppressing star formation in galaxy VV 340a — and solved the mystery of deep-field 'little red dots' in the same week. Plus SpaceX targets a record 35th booster flight and the ISS Zvezda module develops new leaks.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A single black hole is draining an entire galaxy of its ability to make new stars, and Webb just caught it in the act. The galaxy is VV 340a.
There's a structural detail in this observation that matters. The jets in VV 340a aren't firing in a straight line.
Webb also closed the book on one of the more persistent puzzles in recent astronomy. Hundreds of faint red objects had been appearing in deep-field images, and nobody had a clean explanation.
Shifting from black holes to weather. Webb has confirmed the first observed daily cloud cycle on an exoplanet.
On the commercial side, SpaceX is targeting June eighth for a launch that would send booster B1067 on its thirty-fifth flight. That's a record, and it's worth watching not just as a milestone but as a data point.
Finally, the International Space Station has two confirmed leaks on the Russian Zvezda module's transition chamber. The first has been sealed with a hermetic compound.
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