WASHINGTON — NASA has updated a draft solicitation for crewed lunar landers, adjusting details about how it plans to procure landers to meet the agency’s goal of landing humans on the moon by 2024. NASA published Aug. 30 a second draft of a broad agency announcement for what the agency calls the Human Landing System,
Hurricane Dorian has been unleashing an impressive lightning storm as it continues on its tragically destructive way. Looping together satellite images from the end of August, meteorologist Dakota Smith has put together a spectacular show of flashing lights within and around the storm’s swirling eye. “I created the loop mainly to visualise how incredible hurricanes
Col. Tim Sejba: “We’re contemplating a 10-year $12 billion competition.” WASHINGTON — The news that the Air Force is recompeting the management contract of its Space Enterprise Consortium took many by surprise. In a Request for Information posted Aug. 20, the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center announced it is doing market research with
Researchers from the US, Europe, and around the world are coming together to discuss a mission to deflect an asteroid in space and to prove the technique to be an effective method of defence against a looming asteroid collision. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) asteroid researchers and spacecraft engineers,
Dogs are a weird bunch. They range in size from bearish behemoths like Newfoundlands to pipsqueaks like Milly, a Chihuahua who measures less than four inches tall and holds the Guinness record for World’s Shortest Dog. Some breeds are fast runners. Others are jumpers, swimmers or diggers. Bloodhounds specialize in sniffing, while greyhounds hunt primarily
WASHINGTON — Eutelsat Communications has quit the C-Band Alliance, fracturing the group of global satellite operators as a regulatory decision on their spectrum plan nears. Paris-based Eutelsat did not say why it chose to leave the alliance, now comprised only of Intelsat, SES and Telesat. In a brief Sept. 3 statement, Eutelsat said it “announces
On October 11th, 1968, just 15 months from President Kennedy’s deadline for a moon landing, NASA launched its first Apollo crew into space. Apollo 7’s Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham spent 11 days in low Earth orbit, thoroughly testing the Apollo Command and Service Module’s systems. The crew also won an Emmy for
An eerily calm photo taken Sunday shows the eye of Hurricane Dorian, one of the most powerful storms ever seen in the Atlantic. US Air Force pilots known as hurricane hunters are flying regular reconnaissance missions into Dorian, which strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane early Sunday as it tore through the northern Bahamas. Garrett
The asteroid 6478 Gault first drew attention to itself for sprouting a rare double trail of dust behind it, but now it’s treated astronomers to another surprise: a colour change. Asteroids have never before been caught in the act of shifting colours like this while under real-time observation. In the case of 6478 Gault, a
China’s iPhone users have found a new craze – a new app called Zao which lets people convincingly and hilariously transpose their faces onto actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Kit Harrington from Game of Thrones, and many others. Zao topped the Chinese iOS download chart over the weekend after first launching on the App Store on
WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency said Sept. 2 it maneuvered one of its Earth science satellites to avoid a potential collision with a SpaceX Starlink satellite, the first time the agency said it’s had to maneuver to avoid a satellite associated with a broadband megaconstellation. In a series of tweets from its ESA Operations
Air Force Brig. Gen. Ed Thomas: There was uncertainty in the past about who should be engaging the press about space issues. “That time has long since passed and we have moved out.” WASHINGTON — The decision to establish an independent Space Force under the U.S. Air Force is now in the hands of Congress.
India’s first moon lander Vikram successfully separated from its mother spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 on Monday at 1:15pm, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). According to ISRO, the Vikram Lander is currently located in an orbit of 119km x 127km. The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in its existing orbit. The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft comprises three
For the first time in centuries, compasses in Greenwich are about to point directly at true north: an epic coincidence of time and magnetism that hasn’t taken place for some 360 years. This serendipitous occurrence – which is set to occur within the next fortnight – serves as a startling reminder of how Earth’s magnetic
A team of researchers has just demonstrated quantum enhancement in an actual X-ray machine, achieving the desirable goal of eliminating background noise for precision detection. The relationships between photon pairs on quantum scales can be exploited to create sharper, higher-resolution images than classical optics. This emerging field is called quantum imaging, and it has some
The social media team over at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) is having a bit of a moment. People have discovered just how awesome CERN’s Instagram is, and who can really blame them – the Large Hadron Collider is really pretty. But why should CERN get all the fun? If you want to science up
Chinese lunar rover Yutu-2 has rolled over a strange mystery on the far side of the Moon. At the bottom of a small, recent impact crater, the rover found a shiny unknown substance the Chinese space agency described as a “gel with a mysterious lustre”. Although Chinese scientists have not yet revealed what it might
With peak winds of 185 mph (300 km/h), Hurricane Dorian is the strongest storm on record to strike the Bahamas, and it threatens to bring hurricane-force winds, coastal flooding and other impacts to the east coast of Florida and Southeastern US. Dorian ranks as tied for the second-strongest storm (as judged by its maximum sustained
Successful separation of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and lander clears the way for historic landing attempt Sep. 6. HELSINKI — India will attempt to become the fourth country to soft land on the Moon Friday after successful separation of the Chandrayaan-2 lander and orbiter early Monday. The separation event took place at 3:45 a.m. Eastern Monday,
50 years ago, three NASA astronauts embarked on a journey that would take them “Round the moon and back”. The Apollo 8 mission proved the performance of the command and service module. This historic mission launched on December 21, 1968 to demonstrate a lunar trajectory and was the first crewed launch of the Saturn V
It was found along the side of a road in a remote Australian gold rush town. In the old days, Wedderburn was a hotspot for prospectors – it occasionally still is – but nobody there had ever seen a nugget quite like this one. The Wedderburn meteorite, found just north-east of the town in 1951,
New fires continue to crop up in the Amazon forest despite the Brazilian government’s most recent efforts to stop the deforestation of the region. The Brazilian National Space Research Institute (INPE) published satellite data showing that in the 48 hours after the Brazilian government’s ban on burning, issued Thursday, there have been 3,859 new fire
Brig. Gen. Thomas James will be the commander of U.S. Space Command’s Joint Task Force Space Defense. WASHINGTON — Army Brig. Gen. Thomas James has been named commander of Joint Task Force Space Defense, one of two major components of U.S. Space Command. USSPACECOM, officially re-established as a unified combatant command Aug. 29, announced James’
Black holes are some of the most powerful and fascinating phenomena in our Universe, but due to their tendency to swallow up anything nearby, getting up close to them for some detailed analysis isn’t possible right now. Instead, scientists have put forward a proposal for how we might be able to model these massive, complex
WASHINGTON — The telescope for a major NASA astrophysics mission has passed a key review that the agency says keeps it on track for launch in the mid-2020s despite uncertainty about its funding for 2020 and beyond. NASA announced Aug. 28 that the telescope assembly for the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission passed
Russia on Thursday unveiled a new space suit for a future spaceship, but the design may have to be changed to continue a decades-old tradition: making a stop to pee on the way to the launch. The Sokol-M prototype suit was demonstrated at an airshow outside Moscow, as a future replacement for suits currently worn
Manta rays usually like to swim on their own, but that doesn’t mean these creatures are complete loners. Despite their reputation as solitary fish, a five-year-long study in Indonesia suggests manta rays are more social than we give them credit for. Reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi) are known to congregate at feeding and cleaning sites, but
Water is a weird molecule, and no matter how many strange things about it we discover, it seems like there are always more unexpected surprises waiting around the corner – even after centuries of researching it. Case in point: in a new study, scientists in the US have discovered that in the right circumstances, water
Astronomers have found an exoplanet with an absolute doozy of an orbit. Rather than a nice, more-or-less circular path around its star, the exoplanet HR 5183 b slingshots around more like a comet – a long, elliptical orbit with the star at one end of the oval. It’s the first time any exoplanet has been
With the Cold War over and our future on fire, few of us devote much thought to nuclear winter in today’s world. Rutgers University climatologist Alan Robuck is an exception. He still thinks about it. Quite a lot, in fact. Robuck worked with a small team of fellow environmental and atmospheric scientists to double check
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled Monday that it lacks jurisdiction to hear SpaceX’s complaint that the Air Force has put it at a disadvantage to win future launch service contracts by denying it a share of the $2.2 billion it awarded rivals Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and United Launch Alliance to
A camera outside the International Space Station captured views August 29, 2019 of a strengthening Hurricane Dorian at 1:05 p.m. EDT as it churned over the Atlantic Ocean north of Puerto Rico. Download this footage: https://images.nasa.gov/details-iss060m262411659_2019_0829_ISS_Views_of_Hurricane_Dorian.html For the latest updates on orbital views of Hurricane Dorian from NASA, visit: https://blogs.nasa.gov/hurricanes/tag/dorian-2019/
There’s more than one way to look at a galaxy. Once you strip out all the lowest-energy electromagnetic radiation, you’re left with the most powerful processes the Universe can muster. This is the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, or Messier 83, located around 15 million light-years away in the Southern constellation Hydra. And you are looking at
WASHINGTON — Less than a month after announcing a new effort to provide low-cost launch services for small satellites, SpaceX says it will increase the number of flight opportunities and reduce the prices it offers. The revamped smallsat rideshare program, the company announced late Aug. 28, will provide launch opportunities at least once per month
Here’s a simple how-to on how to construct a traversable cosmic wormhole that could send your spaceship to the furthest reaches of space: take two charged black holes, place them back to back, and thread two cosmic strings through both. Stretch both strings to infinity and presto! You’ve got yourself a traversable wormhole. Confused yet?
Third Kuaizhou-1A mission follows a period of new companies and light launch vehicles reaching the pad and competing for limited commercial contracts in China. HELSINKI — A commercial Kuaizhou-1A rocket launched two satellites late Friday, continuing a recent intense period of light launch vehicle activity in China. The Kuaizhou-1A launched from a mobile platform at
If Earth stopped rotating, it would be a disaster. But what if Earth started rotating backwards? It might not be as catastrophic as you think. Deserts would turn into forests. And hurricanes would be less prevalent. But that’s just the beginning. —————————————————— #Earth #Deserts Science Insider tells you all you need to know about science:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday said it has successfully performed the fourth lunar bound orbit manoeuvre for the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, that is currently in the lunar orbit for its rendezvous with the Moon. All spacecraft parameters are normal, the Bengaluru headquartered space agency said after the manoeuvre on the spacecraft. “Fourth Lunar
It was supposed to be extinct by now. The invasive tumbleweed Salsola ryanii only popped up on scientists’ scopes in 2002, but early research concluded it was nothing to worry about. A 2008 study predicted S. ryanii wouldn’t easily adapt, nor be able to expand its range. Those predictions have not aged well. Since the
Back in 2017, neuroscientists used a classic branch of maths in a totally new way to peer into the structure of our brains. What they discovered is that the brain is full of multi-dimensional geometrical structures operating in as many as 11 dimensions. We’re used to thinking of the world from a 3-D perspective, so
Last Wednesday, a gravitational wave detection gave astronomers quite the surprise. As researchers were going about their work at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of gravitational waves rolled in just minutes apart. The first, labelled S190828j, was picked up by all three of LIGO’s gravitational wave detectors at 06:34 am, coordinated universal time. The
WASHINGTON — Orbion Space Technology announced Aug. 28 it raised a $9.2 million Series A round to develop and mass produce Hall-effect plasma thrusters for small satellites. Material Impact, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments, led the round, with Invest Michigan, Invest Detroit, Wakestream Ventures, Ann Arbor Spark, and Boomerang Catapult also participating.
Did our planet once have two moons? Some researchers say so. Moreover, the missing satellite might still be up there–splattered across the far side of the Moon. NASA’s GRAIL mission could help confirm or refute the “two moon” hypothesis.
We’re sure you have your favourite animal. It may even be a really smart one. But corvids – such as crows, magpies and ravens – really are something special. In fact, they’re some of the most intelligent animals in the world. And here we’ve gathered some of the finest examples of just how clever these
What comes to mind when you hear the words “artificial intelligence”? Perhaps you think of Apple’s digital assistant, Siri, or Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons? Perhaps you think of Haley Joel Osment as a robot boy in the 2001 film, AI? Elon Musk thinks you’re looking at it all wrong. “I think generally people
If all the hydro-power dams in the United States were removed and replaced with solar panels, it would take up a fraction of the land and produce substantially more electricity, according to a new analysis. The idea is ambitious, and for now, it’s really just a thought experiment. Today, hydropower is a significant source of
WASHINGTON — Japanese satellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT said it is focusing on a wide range of growth initiatives as fiber optic cable expansion and smartphone video viewing habits make its satellite broadcasting business increasingly difficult. JSAT has lost more than half a million satellite television subscribers since 2013, when that business reached 3.83 million
Although we tend to think of death as the end of line for your “self”, your body still has a long way to go. Within a few minutes, your brain and other fuel-guzzling organs will break down, as their cells die and collapse. That night, microbes will eat their way through your gut and escape
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