Weekly - Scientists find the brightest, most distant megamaser ever and more
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ESA loses contact with one Proba-3 craft
Recently, ESA lost contact with one of the two satellites part of the Proba-3 mission after an anomaly caused the spacecraft to lose orientation. The mission has two spacecraft — one designed to block most of the Sun’s rays from reaching the second, creating an artificial solar eclipse for the second spacecraft. Thus mimicking a solar eclipse, enabling it to study the sun’s corona. Losing contact with any one satellite would jeopardise the entire mission. Scientists are working to solve this issue.
Scientists find the brightest, most distant megamaser ever
When two galaxies collide violently, a lot of gasses are compressed, which makes some particular molecules called Hydroxyl molecules get excited and release large amounts of microwave radiation. As these microwaves hit other hydroxyl molecules, they in turn release even more radiation. This creates a massive laser-like beam of radiation called a megamaser. Scientists working with the MeerKAT telescope have recently discovered a hydroxyl megamaser originating from a galaxy collision about 9 billion light-years from Earth. It is the farthest and most powerful megamaser observed so far.
