The dusty faces of the Moon and Mars conceal unseen hazards for future explorers. Areas of highly oxidising material could be sufficiently reactive that they would produce chemical burns on astronauts’ unprotected skin or lungs. Taking inspiration from a pioneering search for Martian life, a Greek team is developing a device to detect these ‘reactive oxygen species’ – as well as harvest sufficient oxygen from them to keep astronauts breathing indefinitely.

What do artificial hearts, crack-free wind turbines, and pig sewage treatments have in common? Perhaps surprisingly, they have all benefitted from technology developed for space.

Montgomery AL (The Conversation) Mar 03, 2022
The Earth exists in a dangerous environment. Cosmic bodies, like asteroids and comets, are constantly zooming through space and often crash into our planet. Most of these are too small to pose a threat, but some can be cause for concern. As a scholar who studies space and international security, it is my job to ask what the likelihood of an object crashing into the planet really is - and w

Washington DC (AFNS) Mar 04, 2022
Strategic competitors China and Russia have watched the Defense Department's way of projecting power for at least two decades, if not longer, the commander of U.S. Northern Command said. "They understand if we're allowed to project that force forward, that won't turn out well. So, they've developed capabilities below the nuclear threshold to hold us at risk with the idea that they can dela

Washington (AFP) March 3, 2022
Helium is the second most-abundant element in the known universe, but to the semiconductor fabricators and doctors who rely on it for their businesses, it is better known as the latest raw material to grow scarce - and the war in Ukraine could make the shortage worse. Russia is expected to eventually begin producing the equivalent of a third of the world's current helium production from a m

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 04, 2022
NASA's On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1), a mission that will be the first to robotically refuel a satellite not designed to be serviced, and will also demonstrate assembly and manufacturing technologies and capabilities, has passed its mission critical design review (CDR). This is an important milestone that paves the way for the construction of the spacecraft, payloads

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 3, 2021
SpaceX launched another cluster of 47 of its own Starlink Internet communications satellites from Florida on Thursday, as company founder and CEO Elon Musk has confirmed Starlink use by the government of Ukraine during the conflict with Russia. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off as planned into a mostly sunny, blue sky at 9:25 a.m. EST from Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center. At 40 s

Leuven, Belgium (SPX) Mar 03, 2022
In 2020 a team led by European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomers reported the closest black hole to Earth, located just 1000 light-years away in the HR 6819 system. But the results of their study were contested by other researchers, including by an international team based at KU Leuven, Belgium. In a paper published this week these two teams have united to report that there is in fact no bl

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 3, 2021
NASA has started to assemble the Europa Clipper spacecraft that will probe the icy, scarred surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa, starting in 2030. The agency has been designing and building 10 instruments for the $4.5 billion mission since 2016, and technicians are assembling the parts at NASA's California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA announced Thursday. NASA has tapped Sp

Hamilton, Canada (SPX) Mar 01, 2022
New research by the inventors of a promising pathogen-repellent wrap has confirmed that it sheds not only bacteria, as previously proven, but also viruses, boosting its potential usefulness for interrupting the transmission of infections. The new wrap, designed to protect against contamination on high-touch surfaces such as doorhandles and railings, is now moving toward scaled-up productio