Daytona Beach FL (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
Within the constellation Cygnus, an elderly star and its massive companion are having one last hurrah, flinging off mass at an incredible rate before they explode as supernovae and collapse into a black hole. Now, researchers including recent Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate Laura M. Lee have mapped the elderly star's orbit around its oversized and equally ancient partner. In

Riverside CA (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
A team led by astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, has found that some dwarf galaxies may today appear to be dark-matter free even though they formed as galaxies dominated by dark matter in the past. Galaxies that appear to have little to no dark matter - nonluminous material thought to constitute 85% of matter in the universe - complicate astronomers' understanding of t

Boulder CO (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
Ball Aerospace was selected to build the spacecraft for NASA's Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) heliophysics science Mission of Opportunity. GLIDE will study variability in Earth's exosphere, the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere where it touches space, by tracking far ultraviolet light emitted from hydrogen. Dr. Lara Waldrop of the University of Illinois Urbana

Sparks NV (SPX) Feb 10, 2021
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the global aerospace and national security company owned by Eren and Fatih Ozmen, delivered a prototype crew module for Dynetics' Human Landing System (DHLS), to NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). Dynetics is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leidos. SNC is responsible for providing key technologies and system integration of the crew module as part of the Dynetics-led

Manoa HI (SPX) Feb 11, 2021
A team, including an astronomer from the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA), have confirmed a planetoid that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system. The planetoid, nicknamed "Farfarout," was first detected in 2018, and the team has now collected enough observations to pin down the orbit. The Minor

Beijing (AFP) Feb 10, 2021
China's Tianwen-1 probe entered the orbit of the planet Mars on Wednesday, state media said, after it launched from southern China last July. It is the latest step in Beijing's ambitious space programme, which aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put a man on the moon, and has opened up a new, extraterrestrial arena for US-China competition. Tianwen-1 launched

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 11, 2021
If there's an advanced extraterrestrial civilization inhabiting a nearby star system, we might be able to detect it using its own atmospheric pollution, according to new NASA research. The study looked at the presence of nitrogen dioxide gas (NO2), which on Earth is produced by burning fossil fuels but can also come from non-industrial sources such as biology, lightning, and volcanoes. "On

Liege, Belgium (SPX) Feb 11, 2021
Imaging planets orbiting around nearby stars, which could potentially harbour life, has become a possibility thanks to the progress made in observational methods by an international team of astronomers. First candidate: Alpha Centauri, a system similar to ours, "only" 4.3 light years away. This study is the subject of a publication in the journal Nature Communications. Efforts to obtain di

If there’s an advanced extraterrestrial civilization inhabiting a nearby star system, we might be able to detect it using its own atmospheric pollution, according to new NASA research.

Sea salt embedded in the dusty surface of Mars and lofted into the planet’s atmosphere has led to the discovery of hydrogen chloride – the first time the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has detected a new gas. The spacecraft is also providing new information about how Mars is losing its water.