Washington DC (SPX) Mar 19, 2021
Though our galaxy is an immense city of at least 200 billion stars, the details of how they formed remain largely cloaked in mystery. Scientists know that stars form from the collapse of huge hydrogen clouds that are squeezed under gravity to the point where nuclear fusion ignites. But only about 30 percent of the cloud's initial mass winds up as a newborn star. Where does the rest of the

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 19, 2021
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a view of changes in Saturn's vast and turbulent atmosphere as the planet's northern hemisphere summer transitions to fall as shown in this series of images taken in 2018, 2019, and 2020 (left to right). "These small year-to-year changes in Saturn's color bands are fascinating," said Amy Simon, planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space

Perth, Australia (SPX) Mar 19, 2021
A radio telescope located in outback Western Australia has observed a cosmic phenomenon with a striking resemblance to a jellyfish. Published in The Astrophysical Journal, an Australian-Italian team used the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope to observe a cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2877. Lead author and PhD candidate Torrance Hodgson, from the Curtin University node of

Washington DC (SPX) Mar 19, 2021
As a leading agency observing and understanding environmental changes to Earth, NASA has joined the National Climate Task Force. President Joe Biden issued an executive order Jan. 27, which initially outlined details of the task force. The administration's climate agenda outlines putting climate at the center of the country's foreign policy and national security and encourages a government

Paris, France (SPX) Mar 23, 2021
Airbus has been selected by Eutelsat, one of the world's leading satellites operators, to build EUTELSAT 36D, a new generation multi-mission geostationary telecommunications satellite. The EUTELSAT 36D spacecraft will replace and enhance capacity at 36 East, a key orbital slot for Eutelsat for TV broadcasting (DTH) and government services over Africa, Russia, and Europe. It will be t

London, UK (SPX) Mar 23, 2021
Projects to remotely probe ice on Mars to help explorers find life below the surface, a system to warn of impacts of flood risks to infrastructure based on research in India and a scheme to design UK imaging technology for a space telescope are among the new international initiatives to receive backing from the UK Space Agency's National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP). The funding will

Moscow (Sputnik) Mar 23, 2021
The launch of a Russian Soyuz-ST carrier rocket with two Galileo satellites from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana has been put off from September until November, two space industry sources told Sputnik. "The launch of the Soyuz-ST-B rocket with the Fregat-MT booster with two Galileo satellites from the Guiana space center has been postponed until November," one of the sources said.

Darmstadt, Germany (SPX) Mar 23, 2021
External gravitational forces, predominantly from the Sun and Moon, are constantly and predictably acting on our planet. While the Sun's enormous gravity keeps Earth in orbit, the gentle tug of the Moon has, over billions of years, quite dramatically slowed its spin, increasing the length of a day on Earth. When the Earth first formed, a day was somewhere between six and eight hours long a

New Delhi (Sputnik) Mar 23, 2021
The ISRO has been keen on roping in the domestic private sector to finance the rocket manufacturing and satellite launch business so that it can itself focus on research and the heavy satellite launch market. Hoping to get a share of the global satellite launch business, India allocated a $1.4 billion fund for NewSpace India Ltd. India's state owned NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) has prepared t

Moscow (Sputnik) Mar 23, 2021
Russia's Fregat upper stage has placed all the 38 satellites in target orbits after the launch of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, said on Monday. "Separation of 33 satellites has taken place," Rogozin said, adding that five satellites were placed in orbit earlier. The rocket was launched from the Baikonur space