Virgin Orbit’s days of slinging satellites into space aboard aircraft-launched rockets have come to an end Thursday. After six years in business, Virgin’s satellite launch subsidiary has announced via SEC filing that it does not have the funding to continue operations and will be shuttering for “the foreseeable future,” per CNBC. Nearly 90 percent of Read more about Virgin Orbit officially shutters its space launch operations[…]
Dawn Aerospace CEO Stefan Powell announced today that the company’s Mk-II Aurora spaceplane has received approval from the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand for rocket-powered flight. The company is now ready to test the vehicle’s rocket engines with flights beginning next month. The Mk-II Aurora is a remotely piloted spaceplane that could eventually take Read more about New Zealand’s Dawn Aerospace Mk-II Aurora Space drone Approved for Suborbital Test Flights[…]
Think of bringing a pot of water to the boil: As the temperature reaches the boiling point, bubbles form in the water, burst and evaporate as the water boils. This continues until there is no more water changing phase from liquid to steam. This is roughly the idea of what happened in the very early Read more about The bubbling universe: A previously unknown phase transition in the early universe resolves Hubble (constant) tension[…]
[…] The Drag Augmentation Deorbiting System (ADEO) braking sail was developed by High Performance Space Structure Systems as a way to deorbit satellites at the end of their mission. In a space-based test in December 2022 called “Show Me Your Wings,” ADEO was deployed from an ION Satellite Carrier built by private space company D-Orbit. Read more about Space Sail Experiment Pushes Satellite to Deorbit and burn up, cleans space junk[…]
Hundreds of millions of light-years away in a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a supermassive black hole is being violently ripped apart under the black hole’s immense gravitational pull. As the star is shredded, its remnants are transformed into a stream of debris that rains back down onto the black hole to form a very Read more about A team of physicists devise a model that maps a star’s surprising orbit about a supermassive black hole[…]
You may not realize it in your day-to-day life, but we are all enveloped by a giant “superbubble” that was blown into space by the explosive deaths of a dozen-odd stars. Known as the Local Bubble, this structure extends for about 1,000 light years around the solar system, and is one of countless similar bubbles Read more about We Exist Inside a Giant Space Bubble, And Scientists Have Finally Mapped the magnetic field around it[…]
(Andromeda Galaxy) In the quest to find the outer limits of our galaxy, astronomers have discovered over 200 stars that form the Milky Way’s edge, the most distant of which is over one million light-years away—nearly halfway to the Andromeda galaxy. The 208 stars the researchers identified are known as RR Lyrae stars, which are Read more about Astronomers Find the Edge of Our Galaxy, 1.04m light years away[…]
While using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the masers around oddball star MWC 349A scientists discovered something unexpected: a previously unseen jet of material launching from the star’s gas disk at impossibly high speeds. What’s more, they believe the jet is caused by strong magnetic forces surrounding the star. The discovery could Read more about Hydrogen masers (jets at 500 km/s) reveal new secrets of a massive star[…]
[…] It’s not only star gazing that’s in jeopardy. Culture, wildlife and other scientific advancements are being threatened by mass light infrastructure that is costing cities billions of dollars a year as it expands alongside exponential population growth. Some researchers call light pollution cultural genocide. Generations of complex knowledge systems, built by Indigenous Australians and Read more about Skyglow pollution is separating us from the stars but also killing earth knowledge and species[…]
For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated. Musk Read more about Debate Continues Over What To Do About The Fact That Starlink, Other Low-Earth-Orbit Satellite Systems Are Causing Research-Harming Light Pollution[…]
Beams of electrons smash into slower-moving particles causing a shock wave which results in electromagnetic radiation across frequency bands from X-rays to visible light, according to a research paper published in Nature this week. Astronomers first observed quasi-stellar radio sources or quasars in the early 1960s. This new class of astronomical objects was a puzzle. Read more about Bright light from black holes caused by particle shock waves[…]
A team of researchers with members from Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and Universidad Andres Bello has found evidence of a large extragalactic assembly hiding behind one part of the Milky Way galaxy. The group has published a paper describing their findings on the arXiv preprint server while Read more about Huge extragalactic structure found hiding behind the Milky Way[…]
last December when the lander detected a massive quake on Mars. Now, scientists know what caused the red planet to rumble. A meteoroid slammed into Mars 2,174 miles (3,500 kilometers) away from the lander and created a fresh impact crater on the Martian surface. The ground literally moved beneath InSight on December 24, 2021, when Read more about Space rock slams into Mars and reveals buried ice close to equator[…]
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image (which has been cropped) of the Earth on Oct 15, 2022, as a part of an instrument calibration sequence at a distance of 380,000 miles (620,000 km). The upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia, home to the 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the Read more about NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Captures Images of Earth and Moon in 1 frame[…]
A new aerospace company reached orbit with its second rocket launch and deployed multiple small satellites on Saturday. Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, in early morning darkness and arced over the Pacific. “100% mission success,” Firefly tweeted later. A day earlier, an attempt to launch abruptly ended when Read more about Firefly Aerospace reaches orbit with new Alpha rocket[…]
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted new rules to address the growing risk of “space junk” or abandoned satellites, rockets and other debris. The new “5-year-rule” will require low-Earth operators to deorbit their satellites within five years following the completion of missions. That’s significantly less time than the previous guideline of 25 years. Read more about FCC rules Satellites must be deorbited within five years of completing missions instead of 25 years[…]
Does the existence of life on Earth tell us anything about the probability of abiogenesis—the origin of life from inorganic substances—arising elsewhere? That’s a question that has confounded scientists, and anyone else inclined to ponder it, for some time. A widely accepted argument from Australian-born astrophysicist Brandon Carter argues that the selection effect of our Read more about New theory concludes that the origin of life on Earth-like planets is likely[…]
Voyager and Lockheed Martin have found a partner to design astronaut facilities for their space station. Hilton will develop suites and sleeping quarters for Starlab, CNBC reports. Under the partnership, Hilton and Voyager will also look at marketing opportunities related to Starlab and trips to what may be one of the first space hotels. NASA Read more about Hilton will design suites and sleeping quarters for Voyager’s private Starlab space station[…]
Space is getting a little too crowded, increasing the risk of orbital collisions. Slingshot Aerospace, a company specializing in space data analytics, is now offering a solution to regulate some of the traffic up there. The company announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out a free version of its space traffic control system to Read more about Slingshot Aerospace Free Software Could Prevent Satellite Collisions[…]
Astronomers have found a baby planet hidden in clouds of gas and dust swirling within a young solar system, by studying the accumulation of material around Lagrange points. That’s according to research published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Studying these protoplanets is difficult. Their stellar nurseries are shrouded in thick, hot clumps of Read more about Astronomers find a baby planet forming[…]
Where are we in the Milky Way? And where is the Milky Way in the Universe? How many galaxies are in the observable Universe? Find answers in this infographic. Source: How Big Is The Universe | Observable Universe: Map, Size | Laniakea Supercluster | Star Walk
Following the titanic mass ejection of a large piece of its visible surface. The escaping material cooled to form a cloud of dust that temporarily made the star look dimmer, as seen from Earth. This unprecedented stellar convulsion disrupted the monster star’s 400-day-long oscillation period that astronomers had measured for more than 200 years. The Read more about Hubble sees supergiant Betelgeuse slowly recovering after blowing its top[…]
A new analysis of seismic data from NASA’s Mars InSight mission has revealed a couple of surprises. The first surprise: the top 300 meters of the subsurface beneath the landing site near the Martian equator contains little or no ice. “We find that Mars’ crust is weak and porous. The sediments are not well-cemented. And Read more about Subsurface water on Mars defy expectations: Physics connects seismic data to properties of rocks and sediments[…]
Australian media has reported that space debris found in New South Wales was indeed junk from a SpaceX mission, including one piece measuring nearly three meters in length. The black shard, found sticking out of the ground, is presumed to be Elon Musk’s take on 2001’s Monolith. The Register asked SpaceX to clarify, but we Read more about SpaceX shows that it too can shower the Earth with debris[…]
As more private astronauts venture out into space, NASA is seeking to better regulate their journeys to Earth orbit. The space agency recently announced some updates to the set of rules required for upcoming private astronaut missions, including the stipulation that all future missions be led by a former NASA astronaut. NASA released the list Read more about NASA Is Changing Its Rules for Private Astronauts[…]