A microcosm within. A field of lupines in bloom appears to enclose the Milky Way in this fish-eye perspective from New Zealand. The surreal shot, by Alvin Wu, was one of 25 selected images in the ninth Milky Way Photographer of the Year contest, which was founded in Spain. Compared with Hubble's first shot of the nebula, taken in 1997, the new shot reveals subtle changes in the cloud of gas and dust ' such as the expansion of a jet of plasma known to be ejected periodically by a still-forming star (at the top left of the cloud). This demonstrates how even objects of literally astronomical size can evolve over just a few decades. Martian flight tests. Helicopter blades rotate at 240 metres per second ' faster than what would be the speed of sound on Mars ' inside a chamber that replicates the conditions on the red planet. Ingenuity, a helicopter that NASA operated from 2021 to 2024 as part of its Mars 2020 mission, was the first aircraft of any kind to fly on another celestial body....
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