Carnival of Space 542

1. Universe Today – Mysterious Filament is Stretching Down Towards the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Using a pioneering technique, a team of astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) recently produced the highest-quality images of the Milky Way’s black hole.

Above – A radio image from the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array showing the center of our galaxy. The mysterious radio filament is the curved line located near the center of the image, & the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is shown by the bright source near the bottom of the image. Credit: NSF/VLA/UCLA/M. Morris et al.

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3. Universe Today – What is the Radial Velocity Method?

4. Universe Today – Maybe Mars and Earth Didn’t Form Close to Each Other

5. Chandra X-Ray Telescope Blog – Perseus Cluster: A New Twist in the Dark Matter Tale

6. Nextbigfuture – NASA JPL is trying to develop 2069 mission to Alpha Centauri.

A 2016 funding bill called upon NASA to investigate methods of interstellar travel that could reach at least 10 percent of the speed of light by 2069. It also requested a mission to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our own.

Scientists are working on the kinds of technology that would allow a probe to travel at 10 percent of the speed of light. Researchers are considering laser-powered probes, as well as nuclear propulsion, sail power and thrust derived from collisions between antimatter and matter.

7. Nextbigfuture – Spacex Falcon Heavy is Vertical at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center

8. Nextbigfuture – SpaceX BFR construction will start in 4 to 6 months