It’s Saturn’s turn. The JWST is aiming its powerful, gold-coated, segmented beryllium mirror at our Solar System’s second-largest, and perhaps most striking, planet. So far, we’ve only got a sneak preview of the raw images without any processing or scientific commentary. But they’re a start. Remove All Ads on Universe Today Join our Patreon for as little as $3! Get the ad-free experience for life We’re accustomed to gorgeous images of Saturn from the Hubble Space Telescope, especially as part of its OPAL (Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy) observing program. Those images are not only scientifically rich, they’re also eye candy…
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Titan submersible wreckage brought ashore after fatal implosion Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email The company that operated the doomed submersible that imploded in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean is still advertising expeditions to the Titanic wreckage on its website. Reports emerged last week that OceanGate Expeditions closed its doors indefinitely after its CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French diving expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old Suleman died when the company’s Titan sub imploded…
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WASHINGTON — A European spacecraft is set to launch on a mission to help astronomers resolve an “embarrassing situation” in cosmology, although the launch itself is another kind of embarrassing situation for Europe. The European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft is ready to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff is scheduled for 11:11 a.m. Eastern July 1 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with favorable weather expected. Euclid features a telescope 1.2 meters across equipped with a camera operating at visible wavelengths and a near-infrared spectrometer and photometer. The two-ton spacecraft will operate at the Earth-sun L-2 point also…
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BRUSSELS — EU leaders were ticking through their agenda items with alacrity on Thursday. Rumors were circulating they might even cancel Friday’s meeting, having nothing left to talk about. Then Viktor Orbán stepped in. Our approach to migration is unacceptable, the Hungarian leader fulminated. Exactly, echoed the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. We won’t move forward with the summit’s final statement until our concerns are addressed, they vowed. In the end, they got their way — kind of. The entire summit stalled as the leaders of France and Germany, plus European Council President Charles Michel, negotiated with Hungary and Poland. Eventually,…
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) set off for a first-of-its-kind mission to travel through solar winds in space. The mission was launched with the goal of preventing charged particles from disrupting internet signals on Earth, according to a report on NASA’s website on June 20. Concerns of the implications of solar storms have plagued the minds of scientists and internet addicts alike, because of the potentially devastating impact that a months-long internet outage could cause. The PSP, which originally launched five years ago, launched on a trajectory that positioned it dangerously close to the sun’s surface, where solar wind is…
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A new system developed by researchers at the University of Rochester allows them to conduct quantum simulations in a synthetic space that mimics the physical world by controlling the frequency, or color, of quantum entangled photons as time elapses. Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw Scientists have made an important step toward developing computers advanced enough to simulate complex natural phenomena at the quantum level. While these types of simulations are too cumbersome or outright impossible for classical computers to handle, photonics-based quantum computing systems could provide a solution. A team of researchers from the University of Rochester’s…
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GUWAHATI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi arrived in restive Manipur on Thursday to a montage of drama, confrontation and political bickering — police barricading a highway in Bishnupur to keep him from travelling by road to Churachandpur, women activists taking them on in a bid to clear the way for his convoy, and a sprinkling of protesters showing placards asking him to “go back”.A reluctant Rahul took a chopper to Churachandpur after the stand-off in Bishnupur culminated in cops using tear gas to disperse the throng of women questioning if the administration had “anything to hide”. A member of the security…
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On Thursday, James Harden notified the Philadelphia 76ers that he’d be foregoing free agency and picking up the $35.6 million player option on his contract for the 2023-2024 season instead. But he wasn’t doing so because he wanted to remain in Philadelphia. He informed the Sixers, according to a source familiar with the events, that he wanted to be traded. Why he’s asked out of Philadelphia is unclear. For more than two years now, Harden’s stated motives have been a contradictory mess. First, he forced the Rockets to trade him in the middle of the 2020-2021 season. Then, on the…
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Smoke from Canadian wildfires hovered over Pittsburgh on Thursday, concealing the city’s skyline from the seats at PNC Park. The Pirates and Padres played regardless, but not without delay and protest from players. Players showed up to the ballpark for the afternoon game one day after playing in similarly smoky conditions for Game 2 of the three-game series. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Thursday’s smoke “seemed to have infiltrated the Pirates clubhouse” by the time players arrived. Pirates stalwart and former NL MVP Andrew McCutchen expressed concern about the conditions while speaking with the Post-Gazette: “I feel like there’s not…
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Israel may be in the top 10 of global weapons exporters, but, due to political sensitives on both sides, it’s not necessarily desired that attention is brought to every country that buys its arms. In most cases, that simply means that the details of weapons recipients are not disclosed. However, it seems there is a more covert approach when it comes to certain Israeli-made air-to-air missiles (AAMs), widely judged to be some of the most capable in the world. Posting on Twitter today, Mike Yeo, an Australia-based defense and aviation reporter, noted how Singapore, for one, flies Block 52 F-16…