Copernical Team
US must prepare now to replace International Space Station
Write a comment
Policymakers warned Tuesday that Congress must move quickly to extend the life of the International Space Station to 2030 and develop new space stations or risk a costly gap in space exploration.
Abandoning the space station, which is to be decommissioned in 2028, without replacements would only serve the interests of China, which has a new space station in orbit, U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, Gloomy moonscape for rover test
Write a comment
Image:
Gloomy moonscape for rover test Soaring high: Pentagon's Space Force gets new uniform
Write a comment
The US Space Force unveiled its new dress uniform design Tuesday, aiming to make a future-forward mark for the Pentagon's newest uniformed service.
The prototype for the new uniform for the Space Force's Guardians, as they have been officially designated, is a short navy blue jacket with a large flap over the right breast, secured by a diagonal line of six silver buttons.
It has a standing collar, and the service badge, with a delta-shaped rocket pushing into a star, is worn below the left breast.
The jacket is matched with grey trousers or skirts.
"Modern, distinctive, professional" the Space Force called it in a tweet.
"Every winning team needs a uniform! We started with the female design and then created the male prototype," wrote Chief of Space Operations General Jay Raymond.
Tested by Guardians, made for #Guardians. #SpaceForce physical training uniforms are currently undergoing wear testing. pic.twitter.com/6agT93uGDH
— United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) September 20, 2021
Launched officially in December 2019, the Space Force was organized to address challenges of fighting war in the exosphere, seen as a distinct theater from the air force.
Similar designs with diagonal buttons holding down breast flaps have been seen for centuries in European and American uniforms, and are donned with large amounts of braid by marching band drum majors today.
Scores of internet-providing satellites will soon streak across Canada's skies, but at what cost?
Write a comment
The night sky is going to get much busier thanks to thousands of new internet satellites set to launch over the next few years—and researchers say it's going to affect Canada more than most places on Earth.
Researchers from the University of Toronto, the University of Regina and the University of British Columbia found that most light pollution is expected to happen near 50 degrees latitude north and south due to the orbits of the new satellites.
NASA's mixtape for extraterrestrial civilizations
Write a comment
In 1977, NASA created two LP records with tracks of global music, greetings in different languages, sounds of the planet, and sonified images, and then attached them to the two robotic probes launched that year as part of the Voyager space mission bound for the outer solar system and beyond. This Golden Record, said Alexander Rehding, Fanny Peabody Professor of Music, is "effectively a mixtape for extraterrestrial civilizations, a sign that we exist and a glimpse of what human culture is about.
Could low-altitude reconnection power Jupiter's polar aurorae?
Write a comment
Like Earth, Jupiter's magnetic field channels electrically charged particles into its atmosphere, resulting in the formation of brilliant aurorae near its poles. However, the brightness and variety of Jupiter's auroral emissions exceed those generated on our planet. Of particular interest are patches of emission that originate from even closer to the poles than the main aurorae, a feature that appears far stronger at Jupiter than at Earth or Saturn.
This is what it looks like when a black hole snacks on a star
Write a comment
While black holes and toddlers don't seem to have much in common, they are remarkably similar in one aspect: Both are messy eaters, generating ample evidence that a meal has taken place.
But whereas one might leave behind droppings of pasta or splatters of yogurt, the other creates an aftermath of mind-boggling proportions. When a black hole gobbles up a star, it produces what astronomers How planets may be seeded with the chemicals necessary for life
Write a comment
Analysis of unique "fingerprints" in light emitted from material surrounding young stars has revealed "significant reservoirs" of large organic molecules necessary to form the basis of life.
Dr John Ilee, Research Fellow at the University of Leeds who led the study, says the findings suggest that the basic chemical conditions that resulted in life on Earth could exist more widely across th Observations in stellar factory indicates start of planet production
Write a comment
Using radio data from the ALMA observatory and physical modelling, astronomers led by Kamber Schwarz (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and University of Arizona) have managed to determine the mass of a potential "planet factory," the protoplanetary disk around the star GM Aurigae. From their reconstruction, which includes a determination of the disk's temperature profile, the astronomers deduc Mushballs stash away missing ammonia at Uranus and Neptune
Write a comment
Mushballs - giant, slushy hailstones made from a mixture of ammonia and water - may be responsible for an atmospheric anomaly at Neptune and Uranus that has been puzzling scientists. A study presented by Tristan Guillot at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2021 shows that mushballs could be highly effective at carrying ammonia deep into the ice giants' atmospheres, hiding the gas from detec