Why Do We Explore? Simply Put, It Is Part Of Who We Are, And It Is Something We Have Done Throughout

The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season: What We Learned

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was among the top ten most active seasons in recorded history. Our experts are exploring what made this year particularly active and the science behind some of the biggest storms to date.

After a period of 12 years without a Category 3 or higher hurricane making landfall in the U.S., Hurricane Harvey made landfall over Texas as a Category 4 hurricane this August.

Harvey was also the biggest rainfall event ever to hit the continental U.S. with estimates more than 49 inches of rain.

Data like this from our Global Precipitation Measurement Mission, which shows the amount of rainfall from the storm and temperatures within the story, are helping scientists better understand how storms develop. 

The unique vantage point of satellites can also help first responders, and this year satellite data helped organizations map out response strategies during hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. 
 

In addition to satellites, we use ground stations and aircraft to track hurricanes.

We also use the capabilities of satellites like Suomi NPP and others that are able to take nighttime views. In this instance, we were able to view the power outages in Puerto Rico. This allowed first responders to see where the location of impacted urban areas.

The combined effort between us, NOAA, FEMA and other federal agencies helps us understand more about how major storms develop, how they gain strength and how they affect us. 

To learn more about how we study storms, go to www.nasa.gov/Hurricanes.

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What’s Up for November?

November weather can be challenging for backyard astronomers, but the moon is a reliable target, even when there are clouds.

Did you know that the moon takes about 29 days to go around the Earth once? It also takes the moon about 29 days to spin on its axis. This causes the same side of the moon to always face Earth.

On Nov. 3, the moon reaches last quarter when it rises at midnight and sets at noon. This is a great time to see the moon in the morning sky.

On Nov. 11, the new moon isn’t visible, because it’s between Earth and the sun, and the unlit side faces Earth. In the days after the new moon, the slender crescent gets bigger and brighter. Look just after sunset on Nov. 13 and 14 near the setting sun in the western sky.

The next phase on Nov. 19 is called the first quarter, because the moon has traveled one quarter of its 29-day orbit around Earth. The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight, so you can see it in the afternoon sky. It will rise higher in the sky after dark. That’s when you can look for the areas where four of the six Apollo missions landed on the moon! You won’t see the landers, flag or footprints, but it’s fun and easy to see these historic places with your own eyes or with binoculars.

To see the area: Look for three dark, smooth maria, or seas. The middle one is the Sea of Tranquility. Apollo 11 landed very near a bright crater on the edge of this mare in 1969. The Apollo 15, 16 and 17 landing areas form the points of a triangle above and below the Apollo 11 site.

On Nov. 25, you can see the full moon phase, which occurs on the 14th day of the lunar cycle. The moon will rise at sunset and will be visible all night long, setting at sunrise.

On Thanksgiving (Nov. 26), the 15-day-old moon will rise an hour after sunset. You may even see some interesting features! And this is a great time to see the impact rays of some of the larger craters.

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5 Unpredictable Things Swift Has Studied (and 1 It’s Still Looking For)

Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory — Swift for short — is celebrating its 20th anniversary! The satellite studies cosmic objects and events using visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light. Swift plays a key role in our efforts to observe our ever-changing universe. Here are a few cosmic surprises Swift has caught over the years — plus one scientists hope to see.

#BOAT

Swift was designed to detect and study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. These bursts occur all over the sky without warning, with about one a day detected on average. They also usually last less than a minute – sometimes less than a few seconds – so you need a telescope like Swift that can quickly spot and precisely locate these new events.

In the fall of 2022, for example, Swift helped study a gamma-ray burst nicknamed the BOAT, or brightest of all time. The image above depicts X-rays Swift detected for 12 days after the initial flash. Dust in our galaxy scattered the X-ray light back to us, creating an extraordinary set of expanding rings.

Star meets black hole

Tidal disruptions happen when an unlucky star strays too close to a black hole. Gravitational forces break the star apart into a stream of gas, as seen above. Some of the gas escapes, but some swings back around the black hole and creates a disk of debris that orbits around it.

These events are rare. They only occur once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy the size of our Milky Way. Astronomers can’t predict when or where they’ll pop up, but Swift’s quick reflexes have helped it observe several tidal disruption events in other galaxies over its 20-year career.

Active galaxies

Usually, we think of galaxies – and most other things in the universe – as changing so slowly that we can’t see the changes. But about 10% of the universe’s galaxies are active, which means their black hole-powered centers are very bright and have a lot going on. They can produce high-speed particle jets or flares of light. Sometimes scientists can catch and watch these real-time changes.

For example, for several years starting in 2018, Swift and other telescopes observed changes in a galaxy’s X-ray and ultraviolet light that led them to think the galaxy’s magnetic field had flipped 180 degrees.

Magnetic star remnants

Magnetars are a type of neutron star, a very dense leftover of a massive star that exploded in a supernova. Magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields we know of — up to 10 trillion times more intense than a refrigerator magnet and a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star’s.

Occasionally, magnetars experience outbursts related to sudden changes in their magnetic fields that can last for months or even years. Swift detected such an outburst from a magnetar in 2020. The satellite’s X-ray observations helped scientists determine that the city-sized object was rotating once every 10.4 seconds.

Comets

Swift has also studied comets in our own solar system. Comets are town-sized snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust. When one gets close to our Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing halo.

In 2019, Swift watched a comet called 2I/Borisov. Using ultraviolet light, scientists calculated that Borisov lost enough water to fill 92 Olympic-size swimming pools! (Another interesting fact about Borisov: Astronomers think it came from outside our solar system.)

What's next for Swift?

Swift has studied a lot of cool events and objects over its two decades, but there are still a few events scientists are hoping it’ll see.

Swift is an important part of a new era of astrophysics called multimessenger astronomy, which is where scientists use light, particles, and space-time ripples called gravitational waves to study different aspects of cosmic events.

In 2017, Swift and other observatories detected light and gravitational waves from the same event, a gamma-ray burst, for the first time. But what astronomers really want is to detect all three messengers from the same event.

As Swift enters its 20th year, it’ll keep watching the ever-changing sky.

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Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

Every day, our spacecraft and people are exploring the solar system. Both the public and the private sectors are contributing to the quest. For example, here are ten things happening just this week:

1. We deliver. 

The commercial space company Orbital ATK is targeting Saturday, Nov. 11 for the launch of its Cygnus spacecraft on an Antares rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia. Cygnus is launching on a resupply mission to the International Space Station, carrying cargo and scientific experiments to the six people currently living on the microgravity laboratory. 

2. See for yourself. 

Social media users are invited to register to attend another launch in person, this one of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This launch, currently targeted for no earlier than December, will be the next commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The deadline to apply is Nov. 7. Apply HERE.

3. Who doesn't like to gaze at the Moon?

Our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) sure does—and from very close range. This robotic spacecraft has been orbiting Earth's companion since 2009, returning views of the lunar surface that are so sharp they show the footpaths made by Apollo astronauts. Learn more about LRO and the entire history of lunar exploration at NASA's newly-updated, expanded Moon site: moon.nasa.gov

4. Meanwhile at Mars...

Another sharp-eyed robotic spacecraft has just delivered a fresh batch of equally detailed images. Our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) surveys the Red Planet's surface daily, and you can see the very latest pictures of those exotic landscapes HERE. We currently operate five—count 'em, five—active missions at Mars, with another (the InSight lander) launching next year. Track them all at: mars.nasa.gov.

5. Always curious. 

One of those missions is the Curiosity rover. It's currently climbing a rocky highland dubbed Vera Rubin Ridge, turning its full array of instruments on the intriguing geology there. Using those instruments, Curiosity can see things you and I can't.

6. A new Dawn. 

Our voyage to the asteroid belt has a new lease on life. The Dawn spacecraft recently received a mission extension to continue exploring the dwarf planet Ceres. This is exciting because minerals containing water are widespread on Ceres, suggesting it may have had a global ocean in the past. What became of that ocean? Could Ceres still have liquid today? Ongoing studies from Dawn could shed light on these questions.

7. There are eyes everywhere. 

When our Mars Pathfinder touched down in 1997, it had five cameras: two on a mast that popped up from the lander, and three on the rover, Sojourner. Since then, photo sensors that were improved by the space program have shrunk in size, increased in quality and are now carried in every cellphone. That same evolution has returned to space. Our Mars 2020 mission will have more "eyes" than any rover before it: a grand total of 23, to create sweeping panoramas, reveal obstacles, study the atmosphere, and assist science instruments.

8. Voyage to a hidden ocean.

One of the most intriguing destinations in the solar system is Jupiter's moon Europa, which hides a global ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell. Our Europa Clipper mission sets sail in the 2020s to take a closer look than we've ever had before. You can explore Europa, too: europa.nasa.gov

9. Flight of the mockingbird. 

On Nov. 10, the main belt asteroid 19482 Harperlee, named for the legendary author of To Kill a Mockingbird, makes its closest approach to Earth during the asteroid's orbit around the Sun. Details HERE. Learn more about asteroids HERE. Meanwhile, our OSIRIS-REx mission is now cruising toward another tiny, rocky world called Bennu.

10. What else is up this month? 

For sky watchers, there will be a pre-dawn pairing of Jupiter and Venus, the Moon will shine near some star clusters, and there will be meteor activity all month long. Catch our monthly video blog for stargazers HERE.

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10 People You Wish You Met from 100 Years of NASA’s Langley

Something happened 100 years ago that changed forever the way we fly. And then the way we explore space. And then how we study our home planet. That something was the establishment of what is now NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Founded just three months after America's entry into World War I, Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory was established as the nation's first civilian facility focused on aeronautical research. The goal was, simply, to "solve the fundamental problems of flight."

From the beginning, Langley engineers devised technologies for safer, higher, farther and faster air travel. Top-tier talent was hired. State-of-the-art wind tunnels and supporting infrastructure was built. Unique solutions were found.

Langley researchers developed the wing shapes still used today in airplane design. Better propellers, engine cowlings, all-metal airplanes, new kinds of rotorcraft and helicopters, faster-than-sound flight - these were among Langley's many groundbreaking aeronautical advances spanning its first decades.

By 1958, Langley's governing organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, would become NASA, and Langley's accomplishments would soar from air into space.

Here are 10 people you wish you met from the storied history of Langley:

Robert R. "Bob" Gilruth (1913–2000) 

Considered the father of the U.S. manned space program.

He helped organize the Manned Spacecraft Center – now the Johnson Space Center – in Houston, Texas. 

Gilruth managed 25 crewed spaceflights, including Alan Shepard's first Mercury flight in May 1961, the first lunar landing by Apollo 11 in July 1969, the dramatic rescue of Apollo 13 in 1970, and the Apollo 15 mission in July 1971.

Christopher C. "Chris" Kraft, Jr. (1924-) 

Created the concept and developed the organization, operational procedures and culture of NASA’s Mission Control.

Played a vital role in the success of the final Apollo missions, the first manned space station (Skylab), the first international space docking (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project), and the first space shuttle flights.

Maxime "Max" A. Faget (1921–2004) 

Devised many of the design concepts incorporated into all U.S.  manned spacecraft.

The author of papers and books that laid the engineering foundations for methods, procedures and approaches to spaceflight. 

An expert in safe atmospheric reentry, he developed the capsule design and operational plan for Project Mercury, and made major contributions to the Apollo Program’s basic command module configuration.

Caldwell Johnson (1919–2013) 

Worked for decades with Max Faget helping to design the earliest experimental spacecraft, addressing issues such as bodily restraint and mobility, personal hygiene, weight limits, and food and water supply. 

A key member of NASA’s spacecraft design team, Johnson established the basic layout and physical contours of America’s space capsules.

William H. “Hewitt” Phillips (1918–2009) 

Provided solutions to critical issues and problems associated with control of aircraft and spacecraft. 

Under his leadership, NASA Langley developed piloted astronaut simulators, ensuring the success of the Gemini and Apollo missions. Phillips personally conceived and successfully advocated for the 240-foot-high Langley Lunar Landing Facility used for moon-landing training, and later contributed to space shuttle development, Orion spacecraft splashdown capabilities and commercial crew programs.

Katherine Johnson (1918-) 

Was one of NASA Langley’s most notable “human computers,” calculating the trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission, Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. 

She verified the orbital equations controlling the capsule trajectory of John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission from blastoff to splashdown, calculations that would help to sync Project Apollo’s lunar lander with the moon-orbiting command and service module. 

Johnson also worked on the space shuttle and the Earth Resources Satellite, and authored or coauthored 26 research reports.

Dorothy Vaughan (1910–2008) 

Was both a respected mathematician and NASA's first African-American manager, head of NASA Langley’s segregated West Area Computing Unit from 1949 until 1958. 

Once segregated facilities were abolished, she joined a racially and gender-integrated group on the frontier of electronic computing. 

Vaughan became an expert FORTRAN programmer, and contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program.

William E. Stoney Jr. (1925-) 

Oversaw the development of early rockets, and was manager of a NASA Langley-based project that created the Scout solid-propellant rocket. 

One of the most successful boosters in NASA history, Scout and its payloads led to critical advancements in atmospheric and space science. 

Stoney became chief of advanced space vehicle concepts at NASA headquarters in Washington, headed the advanced spacecraft technology division at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, and was engineering director of the Apollo Program Office.

Israel Taback (1920–2008) 

Was chief engineer for NASA’s Lunar Orbiter program. Five Lunar Orbiters circled the moon, three taking photographs of potential Apollo landing sites and two mapping 99 percent of the lunar surface. 

Taback later became deputy project manager for the Mars Viking project. Seven years to the day of the first moon landing, on July 20, 1976, Viking 1 became NASA’s first Martian lander, touching down without incident in western Chryse Planitia in the planet’s northern equatorial region.

John C Houbolt (1919–2014) 

Forcefully advocated for the lunar-orbit-rendezvous concept that proved the vital link in the nation’s successful Apollo moon landing. 

In 1963, after the lunar-orbit-rendezvous technique was adopted, Houbolt left NASA for the private sector as an aeronautics, astronautics and advanced-technology consultant. 

He returned to Langley in 1976 to become its chief aeronautical scientist. During a decades-long career, Houbolt was the author of more than 120 technical publications.

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The NASA “Worm” Logo

Just like many organizations, the style and logos can change over time. You are probably most familiar with our “meatball” logo. No, unfortunately this does not refer to the delicious food. This logo (below) is our most popular symbol, and dates back to 1959.

But, we’ve also had other insignia that represented our organization throughout the years.

The “worm” logo (below) was used by the agency from 1975 until 1992. The organization wanted to create a more “modern” logo, which resulted in the unique type style of the “worm” logo.

Even though this logo was retired in 1992, the Graphics Standards Manual is still available online HERE.

You can also read up about the emblems, logos and insignia used by NASA throughout the years in a new e-Book available for free HERE.

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Smoke Gets In Your Eyes…and Our Instruments

Fires are some of the most dynamic and dramatic natural phenomena. They can change rapidly, burning natural landscapes and human environments alike. Fires are a natural part of many of Earth’s ecosystems, necessary to replenish soil and for healthy plant growth. But, as the planet warms, fires are becoming more intense, burning longer and hotter.

Right now, a fleet of vehicles and a team of scientists are in the field, studying how smoke from those fires affects air quality, weather and climate. The mission? It’s called FIREX-AQ. They’re working from the ground up to the sky to measure smoke, find out what’s in it, and investigate how it affects our lives.

Starting on the ground, the Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment (LARGE) operates out of a large van. It’s one of two such vans working with the campaign, along with some other, smaller vans. It looks a little like a food truck, but instead of a kitchen, the inside is packed full of science instruments.

The team drives the van out into the wilderness to take measurements of smoke and tiny particles in the air at the ground level. This is important for a few reasons: First of all, it’s the stuff we’re breathing! It also gives us a look at smoke overnight, when the plumes tend to sink down out of the atmosphere and settle near the ground until temperatures heat back up with the Sun. The LARGE group camps out with their van full of instruments, taking continuous measurements of smoke…and not getting much sleep.

Just a little higher up, NOAA’s Twin Otter aircraft can flit down close to where the fires are actually burning, taking measurements of the smoke and getting a closer look at the fires themselves. The Twin Otters are known as “NOAA’s workhorses” because they’re easily maneuverable and can fly nice and slow to gather measurements, topping out at about 17,000 feet.

Then, sometimes flying at commercial plane height (30,000 feet) and swooping all the way down to 500 feet above the ground, NASA’s DC-8 is packed wing to wing with science instruments. The team onboard the DC-8 is looking at more than 500 different chemicals in the smoke.

The DC-8 does some fancy flying, crisscrossing over the fires in a maneuver called “the lawnmower” and sometimes spiraling down over one vertical column of air to capture smoke and particles at all different heights. Inside, the plane is full of instrument racks and tubing, capturing external air and measuring its chemical makeup. Fun fact: The front bathroom on the DC-8 is closed during science flights to make sure the instruments don’t accidentally measure anything ejected from the plane.

Finally, we make it all the way up to space. We’ve got a few different mechanisms for studying fires already mounted on satellites. Some of the satellites can see where active fires are burning, which helps scientists and first responders keep an eye on large swaths of land.

Some satellites can see smoke plumes, and help researchers track them as they move across land, blown by wind.

Other satellites help us track weather and forecast how the fires might behave. That’s important for keeping people safe, and it helps the FIREX-AQ team know where to fly and drive when they’ll get the most information. These forecasts use computer models, based on satellite observations and data about how fires and smoke behave. FIREX-AQ’s data will be fed back into these models to make them even more accurate.

Learn more about how NASA is studying fires from the field, here.

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2019 Temperature By the Numbers

The Year

2nd Hottest

2019 was the second-hottest year since modern record keeping began. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration work together to track temperatures around the world and study how they change from year to year. For decades, the overall global temperature has been increasing.

Over the long term, world temperatures are warming, but each individual year is affected by things like El Niño ocean patterns and specific weather events.

The global temperature is an average, so not every place on Earth had its second-warmest year. For instance, the continental U.S. had a cold October, but Alaska set records for high temperatures. The U.S. was still warmer than average over the year.

Globally, Earth’s temperature in 2019 was more than 2°F warmer than the late 19th Century.

The Record

140 years 

Since 1880, we can put together a consistent record of temperatures around the planet and see that it was much colder in the late-19th century. Before 1880, uncertainties in tracking global temperatures are larger. Temperatures have increased even faster since the 1970s, the result of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

10 years

The last decade was the hottest decade on record.

20,000 Individual Observations

Scientists from NASA use data from more than 20,000 weather stations and Antarctic research stations, together with ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures to track global temperatures.

The Consequences

90%

As Earth warms, polar ice is melting at an accelerated rate. The Arctic is warming even faster than the rest of the planet. This northern summer, 90% of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet melted.

8 inches

Melting ice raises sea levels around the world. While ice melts into the ocean, heat also causes the water to expand. Since 1880, sea levels globally have risen approximately 8 inches, although regional rates of sea level rise can be even higher.

100+ fires

As temperatures increase, fire seasons burn hotter and longer. During June and July 2019, more than 100 long-lived and intense wildfires burned north of the Arctic circle. This year also saw intense, record-setting fires in Australia.

46% increase in CO2 levels

This decades-long warming trend is the result of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, released by human activities.

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7 Things to Know about the Perseverance Mars Rover

We’re set to launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 30. The rover is loaded with scientific instruments and advanced technology, making it the largest, heaviest and most sophisticated vehicle ever sent to the Red Planet.

What is Perseverance’s mission and what will it do on Mars? Here are seven things to know:

1. Perseverance draws on the NASA – and scientific – spirit of overcoming challenges

Not only does it have to launch during a pandemic and land on a treacherous planet, it has to carry out its science goals:

Searching for signs of past microbial life

Mapping out the planet’s geology and climate

Collecting rock and other samples for future return to Earth

Paving the way for human exploration

We chose the name Perseverance from among the 28,000 essays submitted during the "Name the Rover" contest. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the months leading up to the launch in particular have required creative problem solving, teamwork and determination.

2. Perseverance builds on the lessons from other Mars rovers

In 1997, our first Mars rover – Sojourner – showed that a robot could rove on the Red Planet. Spirit and Opportunity, which both landed in 2004, found evidence that Mars once had water before becoming a frozen desert.

Curiosity found evidence that Mars’ Gale Crater was home to a lake billions of years ago and that there was an environment that may have sustained microbial life. Perseverance aims to answer the age-old question – are there any signs that life once existed on Mars?

3. Perseverance will land in a place with high potential to find signs of ancient life

The rover will land in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile wide basin north of the Martian equator. A space rock hit the surface long ago, creating the large hole. Between 3 and 4 billion years ago, a river flowed into a body of water in Jezero the size of Lake Tahoe.

4. Perseverance will also collect important data about Mars’ geology and climate

Mars orbiters have collected images and other data about Jezero Crater from about 200 miles above, but finding signs of past life will need much closer inspection. A rover like Perseverance can look for those signs that may be related to ancient life and analyze the context in which they were found to see if the origins were biological.

5. Perseverance is the first leg of a round trip to Mars

This is the first rover to bring a sample-gathering system to Mars that will package promising samples of rocks and other materials for future return to Earth. NASA and ESA are working on the Mars Sample Return campaign, so we can analyze the rocks and sediment with tools too large and complex to send to space.

6. Perseverance will pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet

Two packages -- one that helps the rover autonomously avoid hazards during landing (TRN) and another that gathers crucial data during the trip through Mars’ atmosphere (MEDLI2) – will help future human missions land safely and with larger payloads on other worlds.

There are two instruments that will specifically help astronauts on the Red Planet. One (MEDA) will provide key information about the planet’s weather, climate and dust activity, while a technology demonstration (MOXIE) aims to extract oxygen from Mars’ mostly carbon-dioxide atmosphere.

7. You get to ride along

Perseverance and other parts of the Mars 2020 spacecraft feature 23 cameras, which is more than any other interplanetary mission in history. Raw images from the camera are set to be released on the mission website.

There are also three silicon chips with the names of nearly 11 million people who signed up to send their names to Mars.

And you can continue to follow the mission on Twitter and Facebook. 

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Spotted: signs of a planet about 28 million light-years away 🔎 🪐

For the first time, astronomers may have detected an exoplanet candidate outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Exoplanets are defined as planets outside of our Solar System. All other known exoplanets and exoplanet candidates have been found in the Milky Way, almost all of them less than about 3,000 light-years from Earth.

This new result is based on transits, events in which the passage of a planet in front of a star blocks some of the star's light and produces a characteristic dip. Researchers used our Chandra X-ray Observatory to search for dips in the brightness of X-rays received from X-ray bright binaries in the spiral galaxy Messier 51, also called the Whirlpool Galaxy (pictured here). These luminous systems typically contain a neutron star or black hole pulling in gas from a closely orbiting companion star. They estimate the exoplanet candidate would be roughly the size of Saturn, and orbit the neutron star or black hole at about twice the distance of Saturn from the Sun.

This composite image of the Whirlpool Galaxy was made with X-ray data from Chandra and optical light from our Hubble Space Telescope.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/R. DiStefano, et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/Grendler

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