Новости за 08.01.2016

Four zinnia plants on the International Space Station are sickly or dead after mold was discovered in the Veggie experiment facility in late December, according to NASA.

A major step has been taken to coordinate U.S. agencies and intergovernmental efforts to respond to future near-Earth objects that threaten Earth.

Here are some of the more noteworthy sky events that will take place this year. Space.com's Night Sky column will provide more extensive coverage of most of these events as they draw closer.

A high-flying balloon captured some amazing video footage of the Quadrantid meteor shower, showing dazzling views of "shooting stars" as they burned up in Earth's atmosphere on Monday (Jan. 4).

Here is a chart of some of the must-see spectacles that the night sky has to offer in 2016.

An ancient group of galaxies is the most massive ever found in the first few billion years of the universe, and may eventually grow into one of the largest clusters.

There's a lot more 'Martian' than what you saw in the theatre. Producer Aditya Sood & Space.com's @DavidSkyBrody take the payload fairing off 'The Martian' Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD's bonus features. Live in the Mark Watney future a little longer.

Planetary Resources, which aims to extract water and other useful materials from asteroids, has 3D-printed an object using metals from a space rock.

The Event Horizon Telescope, which will take high-resolution images of black holes, is nearing full-scale operations, with nine telescopes around the world expected to be contributing to the project by 2018.

An intriguing X-shaped feature is visible on the huge Pluto nitrogen-ice plain known as Sputnik Planum in photos recently beamed home by NASA's New Horizons probe.

This galactic group, originally discovered in 1877, uses data from multiple observation technologies.

Two of the towering mountains observed by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic July flyby of Pluto — the 13,000-foot-high (3,960 meters) Wright Mons and the roughly 18,000-foot-high (5,500 m) Piccard Mons — appear to be ice volcanoes.