An international collaboration that produced the first-ever photo of a black hole last year has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
Why it matters: The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration is expected to one day capture a clear photo of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way — revealing exactly what's going on in the heart of our own galaxy.
A new GIF patched together from images taken by the BepiColombo spacecraft shows Earth as the European probe flew from 175,189 miles away to 79,535 miles away during a flyby on April 9.
The big picture: The craft launched toward Mercury in 2018 and will make eight more flybys — two of Venus and six of Mercury — before getting into orbit around the innermost planet in about five years.
Astronauts are experiencing the pandemic from hundreds of miles above the planet — offering the Earth-bound a fresh perspective on dealing with distance, loneliness and helplessness.
What's happening: Astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner flew to the International Space Station last week.
Space-focused organizations around the U.S. are now looking to manufacture ventilators and other much-needed health equipment to aid the pandemic relief effort.
Why it matters: With high-minded ideals centered on delivering humanity to orbit, the space industry can feel removed from the machinations of everyday life. The coronavirus crisis is bringing it down to Earth.
A powerful storm system that spawned tornadoes in the South Sunday and Monday has killed at least 33 people, authorities say. PowerOutage.US said the storms left almost 1.3 million people without power from Texas to Maine Monday afternoon.
The big picture: It was the deadliest tornado outbreak since 35 people were killed in the central and southern U.S. in April 2014, per NOAA. The storms struck as many were under stay-at-home orders and other restrictions imposed in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
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