Daytona Beach FL (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
Just as the ocean's surface can be calm and glassy or churning big waves, a moody portion of space called the ionosphere can smoothly reflect communication signals or bounce them into oblivion. Predicting the ionosphere's wild mood swings is the focus of new National Science Foundation (NSF) support for research at five top engineering schools, including Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

University Park PA (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
Communications across the vastness of interstellar space could be enhanced by taking advantage of a star's ability to focus and magnify communication signals. A team of graduate students at Penn State is looking for just these sorts of communication signals that might be taking advantage of our own sun if transmissions were passing through our solar system. A paper describing the technique

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
A NASA Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket was successfully launched at 9:47 a.m. EDT (11:17 p.m. ACST) July 6, 2022, from the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) in the Northern Territory of Australia. The launch was for the Suborbital Imaging Spectrograph for Transition region Irradiance from Nearby Exoplanet host stars, or SISTINE, mission for the University of Colorado, Boulder. Preliminary anal

Portsmouth UK (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
The mystery of how the first quasars in the universe formed - something that has baffled scientists for nearly 20 years - has now been solved by a team of astrophysicists whose findings are published in Nature. The existence of over 200 quasars powered by supermassive black holes less than a billion years after the Big Bang had remained one of the outstanding problems in astrophysics becau

Bremen, Germany (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
Is sustainable human exploration of Mars possible? How will humans affect the new environment? Around 60 researchers from the University of Bremen and other institutes are investigating these questions as part of an initiative. On July 8, 2022, the University of Bremen is set to launch its large-scale initiative "Humans on Mars - Pathways Toward a Long-Term Sustainable Exploration and Sett

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 07, 2022
Perseverance has a big job to do while roving across Jezero and exploring the Delta Front, which is campaign #2 of the mission. One of the major goals of this mission (and campaign) is searching for evidence of past life, and we know from studying deltas on Earth that fine-grained clay-rich rocks in these environments are some of the best at preserving ancient biomarkers. Biomarkers, or "molecul

Beijing (XNA) Jul 07, 2022
The lander and the rover of the Chang'e 4 probe have been switched to dormant mode for the lunar night after working stably for a 44th lunar day. The lander was switched to dormant mode at 6:00 am Wednesday (Beijing Time), and the rover, Yutu-2, at 7:14 pm Tuesday, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. A lunar day is e

Beijing (XNA) Jul 07, 2022
Chinese researchers have studied the large meteorite irons to ascertain the world's longest meteorite-strewn field in Altay, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. China has successively discovered the meteorite irons at a weight of 28 tonnes, 23 tonnes, 18 tonnes, five tonnes and 0.43 tonnes in Altay. The massive Altay irons were found to comprise the longest known strewn fie

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 07, 2022
Tosol's plan included a little bit of everything, with more than four hours of remote science spread over three sols. However, the rover is still in the midst of the Avanavero drill campaign, so all desired observations had to be strategically fit in around important drill-related SAM and CheMin activities. Remote science observations also sometimes come with their own timing constraints,

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jul 07, 2022
Australia has taken another step towards becoming a serious contributor to the global space economy with the launch of a NASA sounding rocket from the Arnhem Space Center at Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory. Australia's rapidly growing space enterprise will provide benefits well above our economic and strategic weight. Establishing a sovereign launch capability is a vital early step. Th