The US-Russian ISS astronauts have returned to Earth after 200 days in the space, as TribuneIndia reported. The mission has successfully ended on the 17th of April, after the astronauts landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan, being warmly welcomed with extra precautions because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But this is not the only science news of the weekend.
ISS Astronauts Returned Home
The two NASA’s astronauts, Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan and the Russian astronaut Oleg Skripochka are back home after landing using a special parachute. The Rusian officials have declared that all the formalities to protect the crew were taken.
The three members are now under close medical observation and will continue doing so for the upcoming 30 days. After a study that took 30 years, the scientists have announced the discovery of a star that orbits a supermassive black hole. It is located in the center of our galaxy and moves in a very unusual way. Its movement is exactly as it was predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Weird Star Was Spotted Orbiting A Black Hole
The orbit is a rosette, not an ellipse, as stated in Newton’s theory of gravity. The observations were made using the Very Large Telescope, which is currently in ESO’s possession. ESO is the essential intergovernmental astronomy center in Europe. The study was published in the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal.
Chernobyl Wildfires Affect Ukraine
The Ukrainian capital has been recently declared to be positioned in the topmost polluted areas worldwide. This is mainly caused by the smoke coming from the wildfires in the contaminated space situated around Chernobyl.
In other science news, the Ukrainian authorities have reported that the radiation levels in the region are within reasonable standards. However, they advised the affected population to stay at home as much as possible. An impressive number of 1000 firefighters were sent in the area of the power plant to stop the fire. The zone is a very dangerous one, having extremely high levels of radiation, which resulted after the explosion that happened 34 years ago.