Copernical Team
Need to image an asteroid close up? There's an AMIGO for that
There are so many asteroids. Just in our own backyard, we've found over 30,000 Near Earth asteroids. Exploring them using traditional methods and launching a custom-made mission, like Hayabusa or OSIRIS-REx, would almost certainly be cost-prohibitive. So how can we assess whether they would make good targets for early asteroid mining missions? Ground imaging can help, but there's nothing like being on-site on one of these asteroids to get a sense of what they are made of. Those visits would be much easier if we mass-produced the Asteroid Mobile Imager and Geologic Observer (AMIGO).
AMIGO is a concept developed at the University of Arizona. It is a standard design that fits into a 1U CubeSat package of 10 x 10 x 10 cm and carries an array of scientific equipment with it. These include a magnetometer, an electric field sensor, a microscope, a laser range finder, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and, of course, a camera.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft adjusts course to get closer to Earth
On July 26, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its engines for about 63 seconds to slightly thrust itself onto a course closer to Earth.
Preliminary tracking data indicates OSIRIS-REx changed its velocity, which includes speed and direction, by 1.3 miles, or 2 kilometers, per hour.
Keeping your underwear clean on the Moon
When astronauts return to the Moon they will be bringing along a new generation of spacesuits, designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the lunar surface. But in keeping their human occupants safe and comfortable, these suits might also become a fertile environment for harmful microbial life – especially as astronauts will potentially be sharing suits with one another.
Better SAFER than sorry
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Astronaut Andreas Mogensen undergoing VR training for EVA emergencies Mawrth Vallis region - the deepest clay deposits on Mars
New images, created using data acquired by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show part of the dried-up Mawrth Vallis river valley. This is one of the largest and oldest valleys on Mars, where light-coloured clay deposits up to 200 metres deep can be found in numerous places. Cl Astronomers reveal new features of galactic black holes
Black holes are the most mysterious objects in the universe, with features that sound like they come straight from a sci-fi movie. Stellar-mass black holes with masses of roughly 10 suns, for example, reveal their existence by eating materials from their companion stars. And in some instances, supermassive black holes accumulate at the center of some galaxies to form bright compact regions known Cambodia nears completion of controversial Naval Base, amid US concerns
Work on the controversial naval base in Cambodia, suspected by the United States of being earmarked for Chinese military use, is reportedly nearing completion. The Cambodian government confirmed on Tuesday that the base is on the brink of being operational, despite persistent international concerns.
This report is according to Chhum Socheat, a Cambodian defense ministry spokesman, who spok Multi-levitation bioprinting of heart models for space exploration and medicine
As a bold venture at the forefront of biomedical research, the PULSE project is poised to develop paradigm-changing bioprinting technology for applications in space and on Earth. Awarded nearly 4 million euros by the European Innovation Council's Pathfinder Open, PULSE emerges from interdisciplinary scientific collaborations and, over five years, will foster technological innovations to improve In search of electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves
Alessandra Corsi knows that when you shoot for the stars, anything can happen. It's in that spirit of intellectual curiosity that Corsi, an associate professor in Texas Tech University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, will peer into some of the farthest recesses of space in search of gravitational waves.
"We are at a critical moment in this field," she said. "We had one event in 2017 Retired stars join the young stars' party in the sky: how evolved stars contribute to the early heating of Earth
Researchers from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London have spotted a 'retired' Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) star passing through a young star-forming region, something which was previously thought not to happen.
The researchers identified this interaction occurred in one of the places where they think stars like our Sun must form, using the Gaia satellite, a 740m euro