The tenth annual ESA Open Day is confirmed for the weekend of 2-3 October. A combination of in-person and virtual events, this is your chance to meet Europe’s astronauts and space experts and see spacecraft, hardware and test equipment in close-up. On Saturday people with disabilities will have a special chance to tour ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, while the following day’s virtual event will be open to all.

Washington DC (SPX) Sep 07, 2021
A simple mechanism could underlie the growth and self-replication of protocells-putative ancestors of modern living cells-suggests a study publishing September 3 in Biophysical Journal. Protocells are vesicles bounded by a membrane bilayer and are potentially similar to the first unicellular common ancestor (FUCA). On the basis of relatively simple mathematical principles, the proposed model sug

Fort Collins CO (SPX) Sep 07, 2021
For centuries, sailors have been reporting strange encounters like the one above. These events are called milky seas. They are a rare nocturnal phenomenon in which the ocean's surface emits a steady bright glow. They can cover thousands of square miles and, thanks to the colorful accounts of 19th-century mariners like Capt. Kingman, milky seas are a well-known part of maritime folklore. But beca

Kirtland AFN NM (AFNS) Sep 07, 2021
The Air Force Research Laboratory's University Nanosatellite Program (UNP) request for proposals (RFP) will be open until October 1. UNP funds U.S. university students and programs to design, build, launch, and operate small satellites with the primary goal to train the next generation of space professionals. "For more than 20 years, UNP has equipped thousands of students across the countr

New Delhi (Sputnik) Sep 07, 2021
According to state scientific representatives, India's space agency (ISRO) must identify indigenous solutions to achieve its ambitious space program. Researchers also state that the device has separate compartments that can conduct different kinds of experiments. Scientific representatives from one of India's premiere institutes, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), partnering with the

Boston MA (SPX) Sep 07, 2021
By definition, dwarf galaxies are small and dim, with just a fraction of the stars found in the Milky Way and other galaxies. There are, however, giants among the dwarfs: Ultra-diffuse galaxies, or UDGs, are dwarf systems that contain relatively few stars but are scattered over vast regions. Because they are so diffuse, these systems are difficult to detect, though most have been found tucked wi

Baltimore MD (SPX) Sep 07, 2021
Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger? New evidence from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarf stars could continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, causing them to appear more youthful than they actually are. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters, which contain the oldest known stars in t

Riverside, CA (SPX) Sep 07, 2021
As their name suggests, ultradiffuse galaxies, or UDGs, are dwarf galaxies whose stars are spread out over a vast region, resulting in extremely low surface brightness, making them very difficult to detect. Several questions about UDGs remain unanswered: How did these dwarfs end up so extended? Are their dark matter halos - the halos of invisible matter surrounding the galaxies - special?

Washington (AFP) Sept 7, 2021
NASA confirmed Monday that its Perseverance Mars rover succeeded in collecting its first rock sample for scientists to pore over when a future mission eventually brings it back to Earth. "I've got it!" the space agency tweeted, alongside a photograph of a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil inside a sample tube. The sample was collected on September 1, but NASA was initially unsure

Moscow (Sputnik) Sep 07, 2021
New equipment that will help protect people from radiation during interplanetary flights will be tested on the Russian Nauka multipurpose laboratory module at the International Space Station, the head of the nuclear planetology department at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Igor Mitrofanov, said. "We are wrapping up the construction of a design and developme