This week in space: 7/27 - 8/3

Greetings, earthlings.

With everything that happens on earth in a given week, it's easy to forget that things, indeed, are constantly happening outside our own atmosphere.

From one very lonely young star to an asteroid that might destroy our planet, here's everything important that happened in space last week.

5. Jupiter's moon Io has 'collapsed' in the giant planet's shadow

But don't worry, it'll make a comeback.

According to NASA-funded research, the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon, Io, is constantly fluctuating.

"The new study documents atmospheric changes on Io as the giant planet casts its shadow over the moon's surface during daily eclipses," said a press release issued by the agency.

Based on data collected from two separate instruments, a team of researchers found that "Io's atmosphere begins to 'deflate' when the temperatures drop from -235 degrees Fahrenheit in sunlight to -270 degrees Fahrenheit during eclipse."

The release went on to explain that "in full eclipse, the atmosphere effectively collapses, as most of the sulfur dioxide gas settles as frost on the moon's surface. The atmosphere redevelops as the surface warms once the moon returns to full sunlight."

Photo's of Juno's historic landing on Jupiter:

4. NASA discovered the 'loneliest' star in the universe

In a galaxy far, far away from any known celestial object, a young star is going through a tremendous, yet incredibly lonely, growth spurt -- much like you did in middle school.

No, actually -- even NASA called this star the "loneliest" in the universe.

"The unusual object, called CX330, was first detected as a source of X-ray light in 2009," according to a NASA press release.

It's closest neighboring star formation is over a thousand light-years away.

Researchers eventually hypothesized that the object was probably "a young star that had been outbursting for several years."

Based on observations from numerous telescopes, Chris Britt, the lead author of a recently published paper on the entity, concluded that the "rapidly growing young star is forming in the middle of nowhere."

Astronomers are uncertain as to how the object became so isolated, but some believe it may have formed under turbulent conditions.

The teenage angst is almost palpable here.

3. Jupiter actually does not orbit the sun

Today in things you-thought-you-knew-but-actually-didn't, Jupiter does not orbit the sun -- but the reason why is a bit complicated.

When a small object revolves around a larger one, it is not a perfectly circular path of travel. Rather, they both have an orbit around a combined center of gravity.

In situations like the Earth and the sun, the sun is so much larger that the combined center of gravity is pretty close to the sun's own center. This means that while both technically orbit each other, it seems that the sun remains still as the Earth travels around it.

This is not the case with Jupiter, whose mass is over two times bigger than the masses of all the other planets combined.

The gas giant is so big that its center of gravity is actually above the sun's surface. As a result, Jupiter and the sun move together -- though their orbits are still quite different.

Jupiter is also so big that it "tugs" on Earth. Some scientists believe this is what makes it possible for Earth to remain livable, not too hot or too cold.

​​​​​2. A 30-year-old black hole mystery was finally solved

Well it's about damn time.

A while back, Albert Einstein predicted that large, dense objects that have a lot of gravity will bend time and space as they spin -- black holes, in particular, he said, twist space and time like taffy.

The fascination with black holes did not end with Einstein. Satellites from the European Space Agency and NASA have been examining these scientific marvels for decades, specifically X-ray light emitted from them in interesting patterns.

A recent press release from Adam Ingram of the University of Amsterdam drastically altered what we previously knew about the impact black holes have on their surrounding environments.

Ingram said that although a similar gravitational vortex was predicted, it is now said to be more like "twisting a spoon in honey" rather than twisting taffy.

In this metaphor, the honey resembles space, and anything embedded in the honey will be dragged around by a twisting spoon.

He also added that this discovery means anything orbiting a spinning object will have its motion affected.

1. NASA decided to send a craft to study the asteroid that could possibly destroy Earth

Seems like a good idea.

You probably didn't know this, but there's an asteroid currently hurdling through space that has a chance of destroying Earth one day.

Naturally, NASA is planning to do exactly what you'd assume it would do in such a scenario --- they're gonna check it out.

The OSIRIS-REx Mission, currently being worked on by both NASA and the University of Arizona, plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to the asteroid, named Bennu, on September 8. It should arrive at the asteroid in August 2018.

Bennu, which was actually named by a third-grader from North Carolina who won an asteroid-naming contest, refers to an Egyptian mythological bird.

"Born from the rubble of a violent collision, hurled through space for millions of years and dismembered by the gravity of planets, asteroid Bennu had a tough life in a rough neighborhood," said NASA in its review of the movie "8 Mile"an official statement.

The asteroid is estimated to be a third of a mile in diameter, and models predict that between 2169 and 2199 there are eight times that it could crash down on us here on Earth.

On top of those concerns, NASA is pushing its way to Bennu because it's thought to be a relic, containing the materials present as the solar system was forming.

"We believe Bennu is a time capsule from the very beginnings of our solar system," Dante Lauretta, a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona and the principal investigator on the OSIRIS-REx mission, told ABC News. "So the sample can potentially hold answers to the most fundamental questions human beings ask, like 'Where do we come from?'"

While it would be great to know where exactly life on Earth came from, maybe a better question would be, how exactly can we destroy this thing so life on Earth can continue?

That's all for now, have a stellar week!