Confessions of a former fireball - how Earth became habitable
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43Researchers at Yale and Caltech have a bold new theory to explain how Earth transformed itself from a fiery, carbon-clouded ball of rocks into a planet capable of sustaining life. The theory covers Earth's earliest years and involves "weird" rocks that interacted with seawater in just the right way to nudge biological matter into existence. "This period is the most enigmatic time in
NASA's Angie Jackman works to develop rocket that will bring Mars samples to Earth
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43Huntsville AL (SPX) Mar 09, 2022 Right now, some 182 million miles separate the red clay of Alabama from the dusty red planet Mars. But groundbreaking flight hardware developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will soon close that distance. The new hardware is an integral component of the Mars Sample Return campaign, a historic endeavor that will, for the fir
Blowing dust to cool fusion plasmas
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43Future tokamak fusion power reactors will generate heat beyond what current materials can withstand. Scientists have proposed various methods for cooling the edge of the magnetically confined fusion fuel, or plasma, to protect the walls of the surrounding tokamak. One approach is injecting impurities in the form of gases to help radiate away excess heat. However, there is a limited range of gase
Dark energy: Neutron stars will tell us if it's only an illusion
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43A huge amount of mysterious dark energy is necessary to explain cosmological phenomena, such as the accelerated expansion of the Universe, with Einstein's theory. But what if dark energy was just an illusion and general relativity itself had to be modified? A new SISSA study, published in Physical Review Letters, offers a new approach to answer this question. Thanks to huge computational a
Astronomers discover largest molecule yet in a planet-forming disc
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have for the first time detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disc. With nine atoms, this is the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date. It is also a precursor of larger organic molecules that can lead to the emergence of life. "From these results,
Galileo 2nd generation satellites ready to navigate into the future
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43Airbus has successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for its system concept for the second generation Galileo navigation satellites. During this important milestone, Airbus' proposed preliminary design and the customer's system requirements have been fully reviewed and agreed. This paves the way for further verification, acceptance and qualification at equipment and module
ElevationSpace raises $2.7M in seed-funding
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43ElevationSpace Inc. (Headquartered: Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, Co-Founder and CEO: Ryohei Kobayashi), a space startup company that originated at Tohoku University in Japan and develops a space environment utilization and recovery platform to replace the International Space Station (ISS), has raised seed funding of $2.7 million from six investors. Adding pre-seed funding, the total amount
Amazon rainforest is losing resilience: New evidence from satellite data analysis
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43The Amazon rainforest is likely losing resilience, data analysis from high-resolution satellite images suggests. This is due to stress from a combination of logging and burning - the influence of human-caused climate change is not clearly determinable so far, but will likely matter greatly in the future. For about three quarters of the forest, the ability to recover from perturbation has b
Technology demonstration satellite to be launched soon
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a major defense contractor, plans to launch a technology demonstration satellite in the coming months, according to a senior researcher overseeing the project. "The Tiankun 2 satellite is undergoing final tests by our engineers and will be launched by a Long March rocket," said Ma Jie, Party chief of the CASIC Second Academy in Beijing, which is d
Stonehenge served as an ancient solar calendar - new analysis
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 08:43It had long been thought that the famous site of Stonehenge served as an ancient calendar, given its alignment with the solstices. Now, research has identified how it may have worked. New finds about the stone circle's history, along with analysis of other ancient calendar systems, prompted Professor Timothy Darvill to take a fresh look at Stonehenge. His analysis, published in the journal
Team chosen to make first oxygen on the Moon
Wednesday, 09 March 2022 07:33Following a design competition, ESA has selected the industrial team that will design and build the first experimental payload to extract oxygen from the surface of the Moon. The winning consortium, led by Thales Alenia Space in the UK, has been tasked with producing a small piece of equipment that will evaluate the prospect of building larger lunar plants to extract propellant for spacecraft and breathable air for astronauts – as well as metallic raw materials for equipment.
SatixFy to go public through latest space SPAC deal
Tuesday, 08 March 2022 22:20Satellite communications equipment maker SatixFy said March 8 it has agreed to go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, shrugging off market uncertainty that helped dash weather startup Tomorrow.io’s SPAC plans the day before.
U.S. intelligence report: Multinational efforts needed to prevent wars in space
Tuesday, 08 March 2022 21:58The risk that conflicts on Earth will extend to space will grow as China and Russia step up developments of ant-satellite weapons, the U.S. intelligence community warns in its annual report.
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U.S. general: Starlink in Ukraine showing what megaconstellations can do
Tuesday, 08 March 2022 20:36U.S. Space Command has been impressed by SpaceX’s ability to provide internet access in war-torn parts of Ukraine, the head of the command told lawmakers March 8.
The post U.S. general: Starlink in Ukraine showing what megaconstellations can do appeared first on SpaceNews.
First photos from the Moon under the hammer in Denmark
Tuesday, 08 March 2022 16:57The first NASA photographs taken on the Moon, including the first shot of an "Earthrise" and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface, will be auctioned off in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
"One of my favourite photos from this fantastic collection depicts a photo of Buzz Aldrin taken by Neil Armstrong, and you can actually see Neil Armstrong being reflected in Buzz Aldrin's visor", Kasper Nielsen, the head of the Bruun Rasmussen auction house's valuation team, told AFP.
A total of 74 unique NASA photographs are up for sale, including 26 taken on the Moon during the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s.