Washington DC (UPI) Oct 17, 2021
Six British academic institutions will join a U.S.-led search for answers on the early universe. The project brings together 85 institutions from 13 countries to analyze data from the Simons Observatory, a series of telescopes 3.2 miles above Chile's Atacama desert. The observatory has three instruments that are designed to measure cosmic microwave background, the heat and radiation tha

The Ariane 6 launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana now hosts for the first time a fully assembled example of ESA’s new heavy-lift rocket, following the addition of an upper composite to the core stage and four boosters already in place. The upper composite – consisting of two half-fairings and a payload mock-up with the structural adapter needed to join it to the core stage – made the 10 km trip from the encapsulation building to launch pad on 12 October.

Moscow (AFP) Oct 12, 2022
Russia launched a new Angolan communications satellite on Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Roscosmos agency said, after Luanda's first satellite was lost in space. A Proton-M rocket blasted off at 1500 GMT and Angosat-2 was "being put into orbit", the agency said. Angosat-1 was also deployed by a Russian rocket in December 2017, but Moscow announced it had lost c

Durham NC (SPX) Oct 13, 2022
A group of scientists led by Duke University have engineered a new class of materials capable of producing tunable plasmonic properties while withstanding incredibly high temperatures. Plasmonics is a technology that essentially traps the energy of light within groups of electrons oscillating together on a metallic surface. This creates a powerful electromagnetic field that interacts with

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 17, 2022
The countdown has begun! Exactly one year from today, the first of two major solar eclipses just six months apart will occur over the Americas. On October 14, 2023, the Moon will pass directly between Earth and the Sun but will cover only 90% of the brilliant solar disk. The remaining 10% will appear as a blazing "ring of fire" around the Moon's dark silhouette. This annular (Latin for rin

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Launched on 17 October 2002, ESA’s Integral mission is a world-class mission which has been observing the Universe’s violent explosions and powerful phenomena for 20 years, achieving many scientific firsts. The mission's impressive lifetime is owed to responsibility and leadership on the side of ESA science and operations. This graphic highlights some of the mission’s impressive numbers to date.

Learn more about Integral

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 14, 2021
The National Science Foundation said Friday that it won't rebuild the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and instead pans to build a STEM-focused education center. The center would expand upon existing education and outreach opportunities, and is expected to open in 2023, the NSF said in a statement. The NSF is soliciting proposals to manage "the education, STEM research, and ou

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 17, 2022
Astronomers around the world are captivated by an unusually bright and long-lasting pulse of high-energy radiation that swept over Earth Sunday, Oct. 9. The emission came from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) - the most powerful class of explosions in the universe - that ranks among the most luminous events known. On Sunday morning Eastern time, a wave of X-rays and gamma rays passed through the so

London, UK (SPX) Oct 17, 2022
Stars, including our own Sun, can release huge amounts of energy during outbursts called flares. The most intense ones pose a danger to modern society through disruption to electricity grids, satellite systems and the Earth's climate. Blue Skies Space's new satellite Mauve is designed to monitor the flaring activity of stars that are hosts to potentially habitable exoplanets (planets outside our

Munich, Germany (SPX) Oct 17, 2022
Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), astronomers have discovered the heaviest element ever found in an exoplanet atmosphere - barium. They were surprised to discover barium at high altitudes in the atmospheres of the ultra-hot gas giants WASP-76 b and WASP-121 b - two exoplanets, planets which orbit stars outside our Solar System. This unexpected discovery