We humans are obsessed with speed. Recent months, for instance, brought news that students in Germany have broken the record for the fastest accelerating electric car, and that the US Air Force plans to develop hypersonic jets that would travel at more than five times the speed of sound – that’s speeds in excess of 3,790mph (6,100km/h).
Those jets would carry no crew – but not because humans can’t travel at such high speeds. In fact, humans have already travelled many times faster than Mach 5. Is there some limit, however, beyond which hurtling bodies can no longer bear the strain of speed?
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.
Interesting read.