Hasta La Gadget!

Astronomers have discovered a primordial “mystery blob,” dubbed Himiko, that could be one of the oldest objects ever observed–12.9 billion years old, to be exact. That would place the gas cloud roughly 800 million years after the dawn of the universe, and signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation, according to Space.com.

“I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance,” said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif., in the article. “It’s kind of record-breaking.”

There may be another contender for most Earth-like exoplanet found so far. New measurements of Gliese 581d’s orbit indicate a range where conditions would be right for liquid water, and thus life as we
know it, Geneva University in
Switzerland astronomer Michel Mayor announced today, according to National Geographic.

“It lies in the [life-supporting] habitable zone, and it could have an
ocean at its surface,” Mayor said at the European Week of Astronomy
and Space Science conference, which is taking place at the University of
Hertfordshire in the U.K.
this week.

For decades, different groups have defined the edge of space–meaning, the barrier between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space–differently. Now scientists have confirmed that the edge of space begins 73 miles (118 kilometers) above Earth’s
surface, by using data
from a new instrument developed at the University of Calgary, according to Space.com.

The backstory is kind of complicated. When man first attained orbit in the late 1950s, a definition of 50 miles above the surface was used. Today, many in the space industry–including the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), which sets aeronautical standards–defines the limit as 62 miles. For example, that’s what the Ansari X-Prize used for its $10 million reusable spacecraft competition. Meanwhile, NASA sets 76 miles as the re-entry point where the shuttle shifts from steering with thrusters to air surfaces.