Week in images: 06-10 June 2022
Friday, 10 June 2022 12:03
Week in images: 06-10 June 2022
Discover our week through the lens
NASA embraces high-risk, high-reward research with UAP study
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:54
NASA will commission a small independent study of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), a move the agency says is part of its desire to support risky research that has the potential for high payoffs.
Asteroid samples contain 'clues to origin of life': Japan scientists
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:52
Asteroid dust collected by a Japanese space probe contains organic material that shows some of the building blocks of life on Earth may have been formed in space, scientists said Friday.
Pristine material from the asteroid Ryugu was brought back to Earth in 2020 after a six-year mission to the celestial body around 300 million kilometres away.
But scientists are only just beginning to di Updating our understanding of Earth's architecture
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:52
New models that show how the continents were assembled are providing fresh insights into the history of the Earth and will help provide a better understanding of natural hazards like earthquakes and volcanoes.
"We looked at the current knowledge of the configuration of plate boundary zones and the past construction of the continental crust," said Dr Derrick Hasterok, Lecturer, Department o SEAKR Engineering Demonstrates Optical Communications on DARPA's Mandrake 2 Satellites
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:52
SEAKR Engineering, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, announced a successful demonstration of optical inter-satellite links between two Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Mandrake 2 satellites. During the first test, more than 280 gigabits of data were transferred at a range of 114 kilometers during a period of more than 40 minutes.
"This was a demonstration no DARPA's ANSR to Improving Trustworthy AI
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:52
Despite recent improvements to machine learning (ML) algorithms and assurance technologies, high levels of autonomy still remain elusive.
The reasons for this are twofold. First, data-driven ML lacks transparency, interpretability, and robustness and has unsustainable computational and data needs. Second, traditional approaches to building intelligent applications and autonomous systems th Uncovering a novel way to bring to Earth the energy that powers the sun and stars
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:52
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have uncovered critical new details about fusion facilities that use lasers to compress the fuel that produces fusion energy. The new data could help lead to the improved design of future laser facilities that harness the fusion process that drives the sun and stars.
Fusion combines light element New insights into neutron star matter
Friday, 10 June 2022 10:52
Throughout the Universe, neutron stars are born in supernova explosions that mark the end of the life of massive stars. Sometimes neutron stars are bound in binary systems and will eventually collide with each other.
These high-energy, astrophysical phenomena feature such extreme conditions that they produce most of the heavy elements, such as silver and gold. Consequently, neutron stars a Watch live: first impressions of Gaia data release 3
Friday, 10 June 2022 08:00
Join European Space Agency and Gaia mission representatives on Monday 13 June for a preview of the third major data release. This world-class treasure trove is set to reveal new insights into our Solar System, our Milky Way galaxy, and our wider cosmic neighbourhood.
Earth from Space: Singapore
Friday, 10 June 2022 07:00
This radar image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, shows us the only city-island-nation – Singapore – and one of the busiest ports in the world.
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The face of Galileo Astra ready for first of three NASA TROPICS launches
Friday, 10 June 2022 00:28
Astra Space is preparing to conduct the first of three launches of NASA cubesats to monitor tropical storms as soon as June 12, pending receipt of a launch license.
The post Astra ready for first of three NASA TROPICS launches appeared first on SpaceNews.
NASA gets serious about UFOs
Thursday, 09 June 2022 19:30
NASA is officially joining the hunt for UFOs.
The space agency on Thursday announced a new study that will recruit leading scientists to examine unidentified aerial phenomena—a subject that has long fascinated the public and recently gained high-level attention from Congress.
The project will begin early this fall and last around nine months, focusing on identifying available data, how to gather more data in future, and how NASA can analyze the findings to try to move the needle on scientific understanding.
NASA audit reveals massive overruns in SLS mobile launch platform
Thursday, 09 June 2022 18:53
A new mobile launch platform that Bechtel is building for NASA will cost up to four times as much as originally planned and could push back the first launch of an upgraded version of the Space Launch System to the late 2020s, a NASA audit concluded.
Scheduling NASA's Webb telescope's science
Thursday, 09 June 2022 17:36
In the lead-up to the release of Webb's first full-color images and spectroscopic data on July 12, the Webb team is now in the last phase of commissioning the science instruments. The first two instrument modes, NIRCam imaging and NIRISS imaging, have been declared ready for science; watch the "Where is Webb" page as the team works their way through the other 15 instrument modes.
After commissioning is finished, the fun—and discoveries—will start: implementing the hundreds of peer-reviewed science programs that have been selected for Webb's first year. The area on the sky that Webb can see at any given time is called the field of regard. Deciding which observations to make on which day is a complicated process designed to optimize observational efficiency and manage the observatory's resources. We asked Christine Chen, science policies group lead at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), to tell us how Webb's schedule comes together.
"Webb will soon transition from commissioning to regular operations when Webb's time will be devoted to scientific observations," said Christine Chen, Webb science policies group lead, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland.