Image: Auroras viewed from orbit
Wednesday, 20 October 2021 12:01
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Auroras make for great Halloween décor over Earth, though ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet snapped these green smoky swirls of plasma from the International Space Station in August. Also pictured are the Soyuz MS-18 "Yuri Gagarin" (left) and the new Nauka module (right).
The Station saw quite some aurora activity that month, caused by solar particles colliding with Earth's atmosphere and producing a stunning light show.
Fast forward to October and space is quite busy.
On 9 October the sun ejected a violent mass of fast-moving plasma into space that arrived at Earth a few days later. The coronal mass ejection (CME) crashed into our planet's magnetosphere and once again lit up the sky.
CMEs explode from the sun, rush through the solar system and while doing so speed up the solar wind—a stream of charged particles continuously released from the sun's upper atmosphere.
While most of the solar wind is blocked by Earth's protective magnetosphere, some charged particles become trapped in Earth's magnetic field and flow down to the geomagnetic poles, colliding with the upper atmosphere to create the beautiful Aurora.
Studying the edge of the sun's magnetic bubble
Wednesday, 20 October 2021 11:56 Write a comment
Our corner of the universe, the solar system, is nestled inside the Milky Way galaxy, home to more than 100 billion stars. The solar system is encased in a bubble called the heliosphere, which separates us from the vast galaxy beyond—and some of its harsh space radiation.
We're protected from that radiation by the heliosphere, which itself is created by another source of radiation: the sun. The sun constantly spews charged particles, called the solar wind, from its surface. The solar wind flings out to about four times the distance of Neptune, carrying with it the magnetic field from the sun.
Senate appropriators frustrated with lack of progress on civil space traffic management
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Senate appropriators, frustrated with the lack of progress by the Commerce Department on space traffic management, are threatening to withhold other funding until it gets detailed plans from the agency.
Humidity caused corrosion of Starliner capsule valves, Boeing, NASA say
Wednesday, 20 October 2021 09:56 Write a comment
Humid Florida air may have caused valves to stick in Boeing's Starliner space capsule during preparation for a test launch Aug. 3, causing further delay in NASA's astronaut launch program, the company and NASA announced Tuesday.
The capsule, already four years behind schedule at a development cost of $4.6 billion, may not be launched again until early 2022 as the valve investigation con Laser Communications Relay Demonstration gears up for launch
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NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) is gearing up for launch this fall, no earlier than Nov. 22. The payload arrived in Florida in May, fully integrated into its host spacecraft and ready for its final testing before being lofted into space.
LCRD will leverage the power of infrared light to send and receive information encoded into invisible laser beams from one location IU physicists lead world's most precise measurement of neutron lifetime
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An international team of physicists led by researchers at Indiana University has announced the world's most precise measurement of the neutron's lifetime.
The scientific purpose of the experiment, which IU has led for over a decade, is to measure how long, on average, a free neutron lives outside the confines of atomic nuclei.
The results from the team, which encompasses scientists f Samples from China mission show Moon 'active' more recently than thought
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The first lunar rocks brought back to Earth in decades show the Moon was volcanically active more recently than previously thought, Chinese scientists said Tuesday.
A Chinese spacecraft carried lunar rocks and soil to Earth last year - humanity's first mission in four decades to collect samples from the Moon, and a milestone for Beijing's growing space programme.
The samples included ba Dunlap Astronomer discovers we may be surrounded by tunnel-like structure
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A Dunlap Institute astronomer has discovered that our solar system may be surrounded by what she describes as a magnetic tunnel that can be seen in radio waves.
Dr. Jennifer West, Research Associate at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, is making a scientific case that two bright structures that are seen on opposite sides of the sky - previously considered to be separate Russian film crew says shooting in space a 'huge challenge'
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Their movie props floated around and they used Velcro to keep objects in place but Russia's first film crew in space said they were delighted with the result and had "shot everything we planned".
Yulia Peresild, one of Russia's most glamorous actresses, and film director Klim Shipenko returned to Earth on Sunday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS) shooting the fir White House declines comment on China hypersonic missile test
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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday declined to comment on a report claiming that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August.
"I'm not going to comment on the specific report," Psaki said when asked if she could confirm the report that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile this summer that surprised US officials.
Psaki reiterated Defense Secre Uncovering the secrets of ultra-low frequency gravitational waves
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New methods of detecting ultra-low frequency gravitational waves can be combined with other, less sensitive measurements to deliver fresh insights into the early development of our universe, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham.
Gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of Einstein's spacetime - that cross the universe at the speed of light have all sorts of wavelengt Hear sounds from Mars captured by Perseverance Rover
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Thanks to two microphones aboard NASA's Perseverance rover, the mission has recorded nearly five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel, and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm. These sounds allow scientists and engineers to experience the Red Planet in new ways - and everyone is invited to listen in.
"It's like you're really standing there," said Bapti Researchers call for armchair astronomers to help find unknown hidden worlds
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Astronomers at Queen's University Belfast have launched a new online initiative, calling for volunteers to come forward and help to search for extrasolar planets.
The online citizen project, hosted by Zooniverse.org, Planet Hunters Next-Generation Transit Search (NGTS), is enlisting the help of the public to examine five years' worth of digital footage showing some of the brightest stars i Astronomers see white dwarf switch on and off
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White dwarfs are what most stars become after burning off the hydrogen that fuels them. Now our astronomers have seen one of these galactic objects switching on and off for the first time.
Researchers used a planet-hunting satellite to observe the unique phenomenon in a white dwarf about 1,400 light years from Earth.
This particular white dwarf is known to be accreting, or feeding, f Dwarf galaxy catches globular cluster
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Astronomers already knew that our own Milky Way grew by taking in smaller galaxies. But now a team of Italian-Dutch researchers have shown that a small galaxy neighbouring the Milky Way has in turn absorbed an even smaller galaxy from its vicinity. The researchers will publish their findings on Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.
According to the prevailing theory, large galaxies such