Cape Town, South Africa (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
On Thursday 13 January the Cape Peninsula University of Technology is set to launch its third satellite mission into space from the Cape Canaveral launch site in the USA. The MDASat (Marine Domain Awareness) constellation has two main priorities namely ocean economy and healthcare and has been mandated by the Department of Science and Innovation to enhance South Africa's ocean's sovereignt

Hefei, China(SPX) Jan 13, 2022
A solar eclipse over the Arctic created changes in auroras in both of Earth's hemispheres due to connections through the planet's magnetic field, according to a new study. The new work could help scientists predict changes in the near-Earth environment that can interfere with satellite communication. On 10 June 2021, the moon's shadow darkened much of the Earth's northern polar region, pro

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
EK Draconis illuminates an unimagined picture of how superflares may affect interplanetary space through coronal mass ejections Welcome to the New Year! While Earth celebrated 2022's arrival with displays of fireworks, the greatest "fireworks show" in our solar system often occurs on the Sun. Its atmosphere is a venue for dynamic sunspots, solar flares, and dramatic encores of released magnetic

Boston MA (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
The Earth sits in a 1,000-light-year-wide void surrounded by thousands of young stars - but how did those stars form? In a paper appearing in Nature, astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian (CfA) and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) reconstruct the evolutionary history of our galactic neighborhood, showing how a chain of events beginning 14 million

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
Webb has begun the detailed process of fine-tuning its individual optics into one huge, precise telescope. Engineers first commanded actuators - 126 devices that will move and shape the primary mirror segments, and six devices that will position the secondary mirror - to verify that all are working as expected after launch. The team also commanded actuators that guide Webb's fine steering

Green Bank WV (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
An international team of astronomers has discovered what could be the early sign of a background signal arising from supermassive black holes, observed through low-frequency gravitational waves. These scientists are comparing data collected from several instruments, including the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT.) Gravitational Waves ripple through spacetime at a lig

Liverpool UK (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
Scientists have witnessed for the first time exactly what happens to the most massive stars at the end of their lives. Most very large stars explode in a fiery supernova explosion that leaves behind a neutron star in a process frequently witnessed by Earth's most powerful telescopes. But some - the most massive, 30 times the size of the Sun or more - are believed to undergo a less vi

Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
Every living thing requires energy. This is also true of microorganisms. This energy is frequently generated in the cells by respiration, that is by the combustion of organic compounds, in other words: food. During this process, electrons are released which the microorganisms then need to get rid of. In the absence of oxygen, microorganisms can use other methods to do so, including transporting

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
The upcoming satellite experiment LiteBIRD is expected to probe the physics of the very early Universe if the primordial inflation happened at high energies. But now, a new paper in Physical Review Letters shows it can also test inflationary scenarios operating at lower energies. Cosmologists believe that in its very early stages, the Universe underwent a very rapid expansion called "cosmi

Montreal, Canada (SPX) Jan 13, 2022
The days of the U.S.-Soviet Space Race are over, and the domain of space exploration is expanding daily to include more countries than ever before. With the advent of private companies such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, which aim to reduce the costs of space transportation, expeditions into our extraterrestrial surroundings are no longer limited to just two contenders. Though it may seem like we