Jiuquan (XNA) Sep 22, 2022
China launched a Long March 2D carrier rocket to send a multitasking satellite into orbit on Wednesday morning, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. The State-owned space contractor said in a news release that the rocket blasted off at 7:15 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert and transported the Yunhai 1-03 satellite into its p

Ithaca NY (SPX) Sep 27, 2022
Cornell astronomers believe bright reflections beneath the surface of Mars' South Pole are not necessarily evidence of liquid water, but instead geological layers. "On Earth, reflections that bright are often an indication of liquid water, even buried lakes like Lake Vostok," said Dan Lalich, research associate. "But on Mars, the prevailing opinion was that it should be too cold for simila

Paris (ESA) Sep 28, 2022
These spectacular images feature the spiral galaxy IC 5332, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (left) and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (right). The images display the powerful capabilities that both world-leading space telescopes provide, especially when combining their data. The Webb image shows the spiral galaxy in unprecedented detail thanks to observations from

Laurel MD (SPX) Sep 28, 2022
After 10 months flying in space, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world's first planetary defense technology demonstration, successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday - the agency's first attempt to move an asteroid in space. Mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, announced the successful impact at 7:14 p.m. EDT.

Paris (AFP) Sept 28, 2022
The asteroid is flying through space in the grainy black and white video, when suddenly a massive cloud of debris sprays out in front of it, meaning only one thing: impact. Astronomers have hailed this early footage of the first time humanity deliberately smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, saying it looks like it did a "lot of damage". That would be good news, because NASA's Double A

Washington (AFP) Sept 27, 2022
It will be "difficult" for NASA to make a new attempt to launch its massive Moon rocket in October, an official from the US space agency said Tuesday, with a lift-off in November looking more likely. The SLS rocket, the most powerful ever designed by NASA, had to be returned overnight to its storage hangar in order to shelter it from the approach of Hurricane Ian. The next possible lau

Video: 00:00:12

Last night at 23:14 UTC, NASA's DART spacecraft successfully struck asteroid Dimorphos, the 160-metre moonlet orbiting around the larger Didymos asteroid. About 38 seconds later, the time it took for the light to arrive at Earth, people all over the world saw the abrupt end of the live stream from the spacecraft, signalling that the impact had happened successfully – DART was no more. 

Astronomers on a small slice of our planet’s surface, extending from southern and eastern Africa to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Peninsula, could actually watch it live with their telescopes. Among those

Brussels, Belgium (SPX) Sep 22, 2022
Animations of the relative heights of the cloud tops of Jupiter reveal delicately textured swirls and peaks that resemble the frosting on top of a cupcake. The results have been presented by citizen scientist and professional mathematician and software developer, Gerald Eichstadt, at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada. The animation uses data from JunoCam, the visible-l