London, UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Just over a week after Richard Branson flew to the edge of space, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos set-off on his own high-stakes trip onboard Blue Origin's Shepard Rocket. The trip was a success, with Bezos going down in history for taking part in the first unpiloted flight with a civilian crew. With the flight including the youngest and oldest people to fly to space, the trip surpassed many

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
The ability to transmit and receive data is crucial in space exploration. Spacecraft need robust networking capabilities to send data - including large files like photos and videos - captured by onboard instruments to Earth as well as simultaneously receiving commands from control centers. NASA has made significant strides to improve the agency's space communications capabilities while simultane

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 27, 2021
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, conducted Flight Test Aegis Weapon System 33 in the broad ocean area northwest of Hawaii, July 24. The objective of FTM-33 was to intercept a raid of two Short Range Ballistic Missile targets with four Standard Missile-6 Dual II missiles. Based on initial observations, one target was successfully intercepted. At this

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
the Department of Energy's Office of Science (SC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced $9.35 million for 21 research projects in High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP). High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP) research explores the behavior of ionized matter at extreme conditions such as high temperature, density, or pressure. Researchers apply th

Bremen, Germany (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Extremely fast, energy-efficient, fail-safe - and extremely complex: The German government is funding research on the next generation 6G wireless systems with up to 250 million euros. University of Bremen experts play a key role in this research. 6G technology will revolutionize the wireless high-performance data technology and our communication systems once again in the coming decade. "It

San Antonio TX (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
On July 23, 2021, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission achieved an important milestone, passing its latest NASA review and entering the final mission design phase with a new launch-readiness target of October 2023. Southwest Research Institute is leading PUNCH, a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission that will integrate understanding of the Sun's corona, the outer atm

Cambridge UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Astronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics, have shown how exoplanets in binary star systems - such as the 'Tatooine' planets spotted by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope - came into being without being destroyed in their chao

Birmingham UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Black holes, detected by their gravitational wave signal as they collide with other black holes, could be the product of much earlier parent collisions. Such an event has only been hinted at so far, but scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK, and Northwestern University in the US, believe we are getting close to tracking down the first of these so-called 'hierarchical' black

New York NY (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Magnetic fields around black holes decay quickly, report researchers from the Flatiron Institute, Columbia University and Princeton University. This finding backs up the so-called 'no-hair conjecture' predicted by Einstein's general relativity. Black holes aren't what they eat. Einstein's general relativity predicts that no matter what a black hole consumes, its external properties depend

London, Canada (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
As billionaires battle it out in a space race that only a handful of the world's richest persons can play, a highly inclusive international project is looking in the other direction - what's flying towards Earth - and all are welcome. Led by Western University's Denis Vida, the Global Meteor Network (GMN) is a collection of more than 450 video meteor cameras hosted by amateur astronomers a