Tianwen 1 robotic probe to enter Mars orbit in Feb
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 09:08
Write a comment
China's Tianwen 1 robotic Mars probe had traveled more than 400 million kilometers by Sunday morning and is set to enter a Mars orbit next month, according to the China National Space Administration.
By 6 am Sunday, the spacecraft had flown for 163 days on an Earth-Mars transfer trajectory and was about 8.3 million km from the red planet, the administration said in a statement, adding that Astronomers agree: Universe is nearly 14 billion years old
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 09:08 Write a comment
From a mountain high in Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers with the National Science Foundation's Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) have taken a fresh look at the oldest light in the universe. Their new observations plus a bit of cosmic geometry suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old, give or take 40 million years.
The new estimate matches the one provided by the standard mo Secrets behind sunquakes could lurk beneath the solar surface
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 09:08 Write a comment
A secret behind the workings of sunquakes - seismic activity on the Sun during solar flares - might be hidden beneath the solar surface.
These earthquake-like events release acoustic energy in the form of waves that ripple along the Sun's surface, like waves on a lake, in the minutes following a solar flare - an outburst of light, energy, and material seen in the Sun's outer atmosphere. NASA space telescope SPHEREx moving ahead
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 09:08 Write a comment
NASA's upcoming space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, or SPHEREx, is one step closer to launch. The mission has officially entered Phase C, in NASA lingo. That means the agency has approved preliminary design plans for the observatory, and work can begin on creating a final, detailed design, as well as on building the ha Deep Dive into a Galaxy Cluster
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 09:08 Write a comment
Astronomers refer to observations as "deep" when they are taken with very long exposure times. Just as with photography, this gathers more light, revealing distant, fainter objects. Deeper exposures let astronomers look deeper into the Universe - hence the name. This particular deep image was taken with a 70-minute exposure with the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Obse Researchers discover a new tool for reconstructing ancient sea ice to study climate change
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 09:08 Write a comment
Sea ice is a critical indicator of changes in the Earth's climate. A new discovery by Brown University researchers could provide scientists a new way to reconstruct sea ice abundance and distribution information from the ancient past, which could aid in understanding human-induced climate change happening now.
In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers show that an orga Frosty scenes in martian summer
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 08:00 Write a comment
Image:
Frosty scenes in martian summer Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab schedule first launches of 2021
Tuesday, 05 January 2021 00:27 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Virgin Orbit has rescheduled its second orbital launch attempt for Jan. 10 as another small launch vehicle company, Rocket Lab, announces plans for its first launch of 2021.
Virgin Orbit announced Jan.
Head of U.S. Strategic Command blasts GBSD critics: ‘Minuteman 3 cannot be life-extended’
Monday, 04 January 2021 23:06 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The commander of U.S. Strategic Command Adm. Charles Richard said the Pentagon has to procure a new intercontinental ballistic missile and updating Cold War-era missiles is not an acceptable option.
NASA's first mission to the Trojan asteroids integrates its second scientific instrument
Monday, 04 January 2021 21:07 Write a comment
NASA's Lucy mission is one step closer to launch as L'TES, the Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer, has been successfully integrated on to the spacecraft.
"Having two of the three instruments integrated onto the spacecraft is an exciting milestone," said Donya Douglas-Bradshaw, Lucy project manager from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The L'TES team is to be commended for their true dedication and determination."
Lucy will be the first space mission to study the Trojan asteroids, leftover building blocks of the Solar System's outer planets orbiting the Sun at the distance of Jupiter. The mission takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor (called "Lucy" by her discoverers) whose skeleton provided unique insight into humanity's evolution. Likewise, the Lucy mission will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the birth of our solar system more than 4 billion years ago.
L'TES, developed by a team at Arizona State University (ASU), is effectively a remote thermometer.
Delta Air Lines adds Viasat in-flight connectivity service
Monday, 04 January 2021 18:54 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO – Delta Air Lines announced plans Jan. 5 to turn to Viasat for in-flight Ka-band connectivity for passengers flying in more than 300 of the carrier’s mainline narrow-body aircraft.
The announcement, which Delta says will lay the groundwork to make in-flight internet fast and free, covers new deliveries and retrofits of Airbus A321ceo, Boeing 737-900ER and select Boeing 757-200 aircraft.
Remote sensing data sheds light on when and how asteroid Ryugu lost its water
Monday, 04 January 2021 17:43 Write a comment
Last month, Japan's Hayabusa2 mission brought home a cache of rocks collected from a near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. While analysis of those returned samples is just getting underway, researchers are using data from the spacecraft's other instruments to reveal new details about the asteroid's past.
In a study published in Nature Astronomy, researchers offer an explanation for why Ryugu isn't quite as rich in water-bearing minerals as some other asteroids. The study suggests that the ancient parent body from which Ryugu was formed had likely dried out in some kind of heating event before Ryugu came into being, which left Ryugu itself drier than expected.
AAC Clyde subsidiary Hyperion to fly CubeCAT laser terminal
Monday, 04 January 2021 17:14 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO – AAC Clyde Space subsidiary Hyperion Technologies won a 150,000 euro ($185,000) contract to perform an in-orbit verification flight for CubeCAT, the company’s small satellite laser communications terminal.
Hyperion announced plans Jan. 5 to launch CubeCAT in early 2022 onboard NorSat-TD, a technology demonstration mission coordinated by the Norwegian Space Agency.
A good GRASP on the New Year
Monday, 04 January 2021 15:31 Write a comment
Image:
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins performs the Grasp experiment in the Columbus module of the International Space Station ahead of the New Year. The experiment studies how the central nervous system, specifically hand-eye coordination, adapts to microgravity.
Grasp stands for Gravitational References for Sensimotor Performance and seeks to better understand how the central nervous system integrates information from different senses, such as sight, sound and touch, to coordinate hand movements and determine what role gravity plays.
How does the experiment work? Mike dons virtual reality (VR) gear that is coupled with a laptop and driven by an audio/graphics system. The VR
Check out what's coming in 2021
Monday, 04 January 2021 14:44 Write a comment
Check out what's coming in 2021