MYSTERIES BEYOND EARTH

  The iconic Hubble Space Telescope has developed a glitch yet again and has entered 'safe mode' suspending scientific operation. The iconic but ageing piece of technology has needed constant repairs in recent years underlining need for new eye in the sky. Hubble's safe mode allows the telescope to remain powered using its solar panels as scientists figure out ways to address the issue.  The Hubble operations team is continuing work to resolve the issue that caused Hubble’s science instruments to enter safe mode Oct. 25. They are analyzing existing data and collecting additional data to further isolate and address the issue," NASA tweeted on Tuesday. Hubble has been facing trouble since October 23 due to synchronisation errors. NASA says that synchronisation messages are necessary to provide “information the instruments use to correctly respond to data requests and commands.”Scientists were able to rectify the problem after October 23 glitch by resetting the instrument...

  As the search for extraterrestrial life heats up, scientists may need to step up their reporting game a bit. Researchers should report evidence for  alien life  on a scale similar to the technological readiness level scale commonly used to assess the readiness of spaceflight components, a new paper argues. The goal is to make the search for life less "binary" — life or no life — and to express it more accurately in terms of agreed-upon scientific uncertainty. The newly proposed alien-life evidence scale was outlined in a study published online Oct. 27 in the journal  Nature  that was led by NASA chief scientist Jim Green. The scale includes seven levels, which are subject to change depending on the type of environment involved and how the scientific community responds.  For a  Mars  mission, for example, finding hints of a signature of life would register at Level 1 on the scale, and showing that the discovery was not due to contamination by Ear...

 An asteroid about the size of a refrigerator shot past Earth last week, and astronomers didn't know the object existed until hours after it was gone.  It was a close call (from a cosmic perspective); the space rock's trajectory on Oct. 24 carried it over  Antarctica  within 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Earth — closer than some satellites — making it the third-closest  asteroid  to approach the planet without actually hitting it,  CNET reported . Scientists were unaware of the object, dubbed Asteroid 2021 UA1, because it approached  Earth's  daytime side from the direction of the sun, so the comparatively dim and small visitor went undetected until about 4 hours after passing by at its closest point, according to CNET.

 Webb will tackle the challenge of the supermassive black hole’s puzzling flares, which have proved both intriguing and frustrating for astronomers. In its first year of operations,  NASA ’s  James Webb Space Telescope  will join forces with a global collaborative effort to create an image of the area directly surrounding the supermassive  black hole  at the heart of our  Milky Way  galaxy. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is famous for its first image of the “shadow” of the black hole at the core of galaxy M87, and it has now turned its efforts to the more complex environment of Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. While M87’s core presented a steady target, Sagittarius A* exhibits mysterious flickering flares on an hourly basis, which make the imaging process much more difficult. Webb will assist with its own infrared images of the black hole region, providing data about when flares are present that will be a valuable refere...

 An   asteroid  about as long as the Great Pyramid of Giza is tall  made a "close" approach with Earth  , according to NASA calculations. There is no worry that the space rock poses any threat to  Earth , but NASA monitors such rocks to both learn more about the early  solar system  — asteroids are rocky fragments from that time — and because if their orbits were to change, the asteroid could pose a future risk to Earth. On its closest approach, the near-Earth asteroid, called 2008 GO20, swung within 2.8 million miles (4.5 million kilometers) of our blue marble. It flew at a whopping 18,000 mph (nearly 29,000 km/h), according to news reports.  The rock is estimated to be anywhere from 318 to 720 feet (97 to 220 meters) across. (The Great Pyramid of Giza stands at 450 feet, or 138 m, tall.) Any space rock larger than about 490 feet (150 m) across that is expected to make a shave with Earth within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km) is considere...

SpaceX's Starship SN20 prototype could make its first orbital test flight as soon as next month. This visualization depicts SpaceX's Starship could launch on its first uncrewed flight to Mars in 2024.   (Image credit: SpaceX) SpaceX's latest Starship prototype could blast off into orbit earlier than   SpaceX completed a successful static fire test  with its SN20 Starship prototype. This was a major hurdle for the spacecraft ahead of its first orbital flight test, which SpaceX had previously stated would likely happen within a couple of months. But now,  SpaceX  founder Elon Musk has said that the launch could happen as soon as next month.  "If all goes well,  Starship  will be ready for its first orbital launch attempt next month, pending regulatory approval," Musk  tweeted  today .

R adio emissions from an alien world.  X-ray blobs bursting from the Milky Way. A long-lost rocket booster.  Ghostly radio circles.  A million new galaxy NASA's LATEST DISCOVERY Astronomers have discovered an  exoplanet located 90 light-years away from Earth  with a potentially rich atmosphere that may contain water clouds. Nasa said that the newly discovered exoplanet is more than three-and-a half times as big as Earth, calling it “oddly reminiscent” of Neptune .