Image: Crater tree rings

Beijing (XNA) Jan 28, 2022
China will employ its space station for carrying out astronomical observations, Earth science and research, and space science experiments in the next five years, according to a white paper published Friday. The white paper, titled "China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective", was released by China's State Council Information Office. The country plans to complete the construction of it

Beijing (XNA) Jan 28, 2022
China will carry out more space science exploration in the next five years, according to a white paper on the country's space activities released Friday. The white paper, titled "China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective," was released by the State Council Information Office. It says that China will continue with the research and development of programs such as the satellite for spac

Montreal, Canada (SPX) Jan 28, 2022
When bears and ground squirrels hibernate in winter, they stop eating, lasting until spring simply on the fat reserves they've stored up in their bodies. Usually, this sort of prolonged fasting and inactivity would significantly reduce the mass and function of muscle, but hibernators don't suffer this fate. How they avoid it, however, has been a mystery. Now, in research published in Scien

Guildford UK (SPX) Jan 28, 2022
The University of Surrey and Space Power are tackling the problem of powering satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) during their eclipse period when they cannot see the sun. By collaborating on a space infrastructure project, the joint team will develop new technology which uses lasers to beam solar power from satellites under solar illumination to small satellites orbiting closer to Earth during

Washington (AFP) Jan 27, 2022
NASA said Thursday it aims to survey the crater formed when the remains of a SpaceX rocket are expected to crash into the Moon in early March, calling the event "an exciting research opportunity." The rocket was deployed in 2015 to put a NASA satellite into orbit and its second stage, or booster, has been floating in the cosmos ever since, a common fate for such pieces of space technology.

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 28, 2022
In its third dedicated rideshare mission with SpaceX, Exolaunch, the leading global provider of launch, in-space logistics and deployment services, successfully integrated and launched 29 small satellites from customers across the globe. The company's rideshare clusters aboard the SpaceX Transporter-3 mission were an amalgamation of microsats, cubesats (up to 16U) and PocketQubes. The combinatio

Boulder CO (SPX) Jan 28, 2022
Armed with a new statistical analysis of stellar flares on hundreds of distant stars, scientists are beginning to understand the likelihood that remote "exoplanets" might sustain life in our galaxy, research at the University of Colorado Boulder suggests. The most-intense flares, which are more complex than previously observed, could have implications for the viability of life on nearby pl

Newark NJ (SPX) Jan 28, 2022
New findings published Jan. 27 in the journal Nature Astronomy have called into question decades of theoretical understanding used by astrophysicists to interpret an observational phenomenon central to understanding energy released during powerful eruptions from the Sun, known as solar flares. Solar flares, which are triggered when magnetic field lines break and reconnect above the Sun's s