Albuquerque NM (SPX) Jun 10, 2021
An international group of collaborators, including scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The University of New Mexico, have discovered a new, temperate sub-Neptune sized exoplanet with a 24-day orbital period orbiting a nearby M dwarf star. The recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities thanks to the planet's substantial atmosphere, small star, and how fast the system

Munich, Germany (SPX) Jun 10, 2021
The moons of planets that have no parent star can possess an atmosphere and retain liquid water. Astrophysicists at LMU have calculated that such systems could harbor sufficient water to make life possible - and sustain it. Water - in liquid form - is the elixir of life. It made life possible on Earth and is indispensable for the continuing existence of living systems on the planet. This e

Beijing (AFP) June 9, 2021
Beijing on Wednesday accused Washington of "paranoid delusion" after the US Senate passed a sweeping industrial policy bill aimed at countering the surging economic threat from China. America's political parties overcame partisan divisions to support pumping more than $170 billion into research and development, one of the most significant achievements in Congress since Joe Biden's presidency

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 10, 2021
As the coronavirus pandemic slowed global commerce to a crawl in early 2020, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) - which create ozone, a danger to human health and to climate - decreased 15% globally, with local reductions as high as 50%, according to a study led by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. As a result of the lower NOx emissions, by June 2020, global

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 10, 2021
Sunlight traveling through the atmosphere becomes polarized in different ways as it is scattered by water vapor, ice, aerosols created by living organisms, dust, and other particulates. Measuring that polarization lets scientists extrapolate what is in the atmosphere, and the next generation of polarimeters for the job could benefit from a new technology developed by researchers at Harvard

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jun 10, 2021
UP42 and SI Imaging Services (SIIS) of Daejeon, South Korea, have signed an agreement to make imagery from the KOMPSAT satellites available on the UP42 marketplace and developer platform. The deal includes high-resolution optical imagery from KOMPSAT-3 and -3A, and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from KOMPSAT-5. KOMPSAT imagery is a valuable addition to the more than 50 geospatial data

Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 10, 2021
The widely studied metallic asteroid known as 16 Psyche was long thought to be the exposed iron core of a small planet that failed to form during the earliest days of the solar system. But new University of Arizona-led research suggests that the asteroid might not be as metallic or dense as once thought, and hints at a much different origin story. Scientists are interested in 16 Psyche bec

Beijing, China (SPX) Jun 10, 2021
China's upcoming manned mission - Shenzhou XII - is expected to set off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert to the Tianhe core module of the nation's space station. A Long March 2F carrier rocket with the Shenzhou XII spacecraft on top of it was moved to its launch pad at the space complex on Wednesday evening, according to the China Manned Space Agency

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 9, 2021
New space missions being launched this summer will attempt to revolutionize space communications by using laser beams to quickly transmit large amounts of data, including high-definition video from the moon. Two missions by the U.S. government will test such lasers, which use invisible, infrared light beams. NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration will explore the best wa

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 9, 2021
A pair of engineering teams from Wake Forest University took home first and second place in NASA's Vascular Tissue Challenge, the space agency announced Wednesday. Both teams used slightly different techniques to 3D-print vascularized liver tissue in the lab. Now, the two engineering teams will get the opportunity to test their breakthrough tissue models on the International Space Stati