Space

Astronomers have discovered the most distant and earliest blazar, comprised of an erupting supermassive black hole aiming its plasma jets directly at Earth. Blazars occur when supermassive black holes are surrounded by vast amounts of gas and dust that they feed on, in regions called active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The immense gravity of these cosmic titans causes the surrounding gas and dust to…

The winners of the first-ever Neil Armstrong Space Prize just got their hardware. Those awardees — the people who developed and mastered the famous landing capability of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket — were announced in April. But they didn’t actually receive the prize until Tuesday night (Sept. 15), when it was bestowed during a ceremony at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. And it…

On Sept. 16, 1949, the U.S. launched a V-2 rocket with a monkey named Albert III on board. Albert III was the third monkey the U.S. attempted to launch to space. He was also the third one to be killed on the job. The U.S. precursor to NASA began launching monkeys into space in the 1940s to try to see what might happen to humans in space. This testing started more than a decade before any humans…

NASA astronaut Victor Glover is now “astronaut emeritus.” He’s hanging up his spacesuit for a position he hopes can guide the future engineering and science leaders of tomorrow. Glover, who served as pilot on NASA’s Artemis II mission that flew around the moon in April, officially began his new role as executive advisor to Jeff Armstrong, president of the California…