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Monday, 18 March 2024 16:00

Hubble views dwarf galaxy LEDA 4216

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Hubble views dwarf galaxy LEDA 4216
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The bright patches on LEDA 42160’s lower-right flank may be star-forming regions spurred on by ram pressure stripping. Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has dramatic effects on star formation in LEDA 42160.

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Astronaut Thomas Stafford, commander of Apollo 10, has died at age 93
This Aug. 23, 1965 photo provided by NASA shows astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, near the NASA Motor Vessel Retriever in the Gulf of Mexico during training. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died Monday, March 18, 2024. He was 93. Credit: NASA via AP

Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.

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Voyager 1
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

For nearly 50 years, NASA's Voyager 1 mission has competed for the title of deep space's little engine that could. Launched in 1977 along with its twin, Voyager 2, the spacecraft is now soaring more than 15 billion miles from Earth.

On their journeys through the , the Voyager spacecraft beamed startling images back to Earth—of Jupiter and Saturn, then Uranus and Neptune and their moons. Voyager 1's most famous shot may be what famed astronomer Carl Sagan called the "pale blue dot," a lonely image of Earth taken from 6 billion miles away in 1990.

But Voyager 1's trek could now be drawing to a close. Since December, the spacecraft--which weighs less than most cars--has been sending nonsensical messages back to Earth, and engineers are struggling to fix the problem. Voyager 2 remains operational.

Fran Bagenal is a planetary scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder. She started working on the Voyager mission during a summer student job in the late 1970s and has followed the two spacecraft closely since.

To celebrate Voyager 1, Bagenal reflects on the mission's legacy—and which planet she wants to visit again.

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Starlink
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

After two days of scrubs, SpaceX pulled out some Friday night lights sending up another batch of Starlink satellites from Florida's Space Coast using a first-stage booster for a record-tying 19th time.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A at 8:21 p.m. carrying 23 of SpaceX's internet satellites. Two previous launch attempts were called off with about two minutes left on the countdown clock, the most recent because of an "issue with the transporter erector's cradle arms."

But despite venturing two hours deep into a four-hour window, the launch took off without a hitch.

The first-stage booster equaled the total number of flights by two of SpaceX's other boosters, one of which, though, was destroyed when it toppled over at sea.

This booster's resume includes two human spaceflights, the Inspiration4 orbital mission flown by billionaire Jared Issacman and the first private spaceflight for Axiom Space on its Ax-1 mission to the International Space Station. It has also flown the GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Nilesat 301, OneWeb Launch 17, ARABSAT BADR-8 and 11 Starlink missions.

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SpaceX
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Elon Musk's SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, Reuters reported, citing five people familiar with the program.

SpaceX's Starshield business unit is building the network as part of a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office, Reuters said. The new spy system comprises of hundreds of satellites bearing Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a swarm in low orbits, according to the .

The contract signals a strengthening relationship between the billionaire's space company and the US government's national security agencies, Reuters said.

SpaceX and the NRO did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent after regular business hours. The NRO said last year that it planned to quadruple its orbiting spacecraft by 2033.

2024 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Citation: SpaceX is building a spy satellite network for US, news agency says (2024, March 18) retrieved 18 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2024-03-spacex-spy-satellite-network-news.html
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Astronomers have created the largest yet cosmic 3D map of quasars: bright and active centres of galaxies powered by supermassive black holes. This map shows the location of about 1.3 million quasars in space and time, with the furthest shining bright when the Universe was only 1.5 billion years old.

The new map has been made with data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope. While Gaia’s main objective is to map the stars in our own galaxy, in the process of scanning the sky it also spots objects outside the Milky Way, such as quasars and other galaxies.

The graphic

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Tucson AZ (SPX) Mar 14, 2024
Many artists have tried to depict what Earth might have looked like billions of years ago, before life made its appearance. Many scenes trade snow-covered mountains for lava-gushing volcanoes and blue skies for lightning bolts pummeling what's below from a hazy sky. But what did early Earth actually look like? This question has been the subject of intense scientific research for decades.
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Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 12, 2024
Aerospacelab has successfully doubled its number of satellites in orbit by launching four new satellites. The launch took place at Vandenberg Space Force Station in California, USA, at 2:05 pm PT on March 4th aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as part of SpaceX's Transporter-10 mission. Shortly after takeoff from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E), the satellites were confirmed to be in good condition
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Baltimore MD (SPX) Mar 14, 2024
What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two young protostars known as IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385. Although planets are not yet forming around those stars, these and other molecules detected there by Webb represent key ingredients for making potentially habitable worlds. An in
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Loa Alamos NM (SPX) Mar 14, 2024
The origin of heavy elements in our universe is theorized to be the result of neutron star collisions, which produce conditions hot and dense enough for free neutrons to merge with atomic nuclei and form new elements in a split-second window of time. Testing this theory and answering other astrophysical questions requires predictions for a vast range of masses of atomic nuclei. Los Alamos Nation
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