Deputy Director, Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics
We hadn’t seen a total solar eclipse on the Iberian Peninsula since 1912, and this Wednesday, just before sunset, the celestial bodies aligned once more. That perfect cosmic dance between the Sun, the Moon and the Earth could be seen from numerous regions across Spain. Among the millions of people who observed the phenomenon in Spain, eclipse experts share their impressions with SMC Spain.
Two decades of work with numerous setbacks, a budget of more than 10 billion dollars and a journey of 1.5 million kilometres to provide us with images of the universe in unprecedented detail have led Science magazine to choose the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as the science breakthrough of 2022.
Research published in Science proposes that an ancient moon of Saturn, which they have named Chrysalis (Chrysalis), may be responsible for Saturn's distinctive rings. According to the authors, the moon orbited around the gas giant for billions of years, but about 160 million years ago, it became unstable and moved too close to the planet, breaking apart under Saturn's tidal forces and forming the planet's rings. According to the research, Saturn's current tilt may also be related to the destruction of this moon.