As NASA develops its plans for eventual human missions to Mars, the agency is deferring decisions on a number of major details, in part to retain flexibility to keep the program alive when U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in two years.
The supermassive black hole is 40 million times as massive as the sun and powers a quasar that existed 700 million years after the Big Bang.
The asteroid zoomed by Earth at a perfectly safe distance of around 1.8 million miles (2.9 kilometers).
Images show surprise changes to the spacecraft as it interacted with the atmosphere.
I wouldn't be surprised if the plan gets put on hold for a significantly longer amount of time than expected with the funding having dropped so significantly, but I guess that is what flexibility is for.