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Russia’s anti-satellite missile test has raised calls for the United States and its allies to push for international norms to ban such tests. But reaching an agreement on space arms control could take years or even decades.

Mini-jet found near Milky Way's supermassive black hole
Milky Way jet. Credit: NASA

Our Milky Way's central black hole has a leak. This supermassive black hole looks like it still has the vestiges of a blowtorch-like jet dating back several thousand years. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope hasn't photographed the phantom jet but has helped find circumstantial evidence that it is still pushing feebly into a huge hydrogen cloud and then splattering, like the narrow stream from a hose aimed into a pile of sand.

This is further evidence that the black hole, with a mass of 4.1 million Suns, is not a sleeping monster but periodically hiccups as stars and gas clouds fall into it. Black holes draw some material into a swirling, orbiting where some of the infalling material is swept up into outflowing jets that are collimated by the black hole's powerful magnetic fields. The narrow "searchlight beams" are accompanied by a flood of deadly ionizing radiation.

"The central black hole is dynamically variable and is currently powered down," said Gerald Cecil of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

ELSA-d

A consortium led by British small satellite maker SSTL has secured UK Space Agency funding to study a mission to remove two spacecraft from low Earth orbit by 2025.

SpaceNews

In comparison to terrestrial wireless, standards have played a much more limited role in the satellite world’s more insular ecosystem. But as the industry transitions from legacy analog hardware to digital software, standards will be essential for realizing true interoperability between satellites and the new ground infrastructures.

Kikina

The head of Roscosmos announced Dec. 8 that the agency has selected the first cosmonaut to go on a SpaceX commercial crew mission to the International Space Station, although a seat barter agreement between NASA and Roscosmos is still being finalized.

Chinese astronauts give science lesson from space station
In this image taken from video footage run by China's CCTV, astronaut Wang Yaping, right, addresses children across different parts of China through video link from China's space station orbiting earth on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. Chinese astronauts gave a science lesson to students from China's space station on Thursday. Credit: CCTV via AP

Chinese astronauts on Thursday beamed back a science lesson from the country's under-construction space station.

The lecture focused on physics, aiming to illustrate how the weightless environment affects buoyancy, the movement of objects and optics.

NASA's newest X-ray telescope rockets into orbit
Photographers follow a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket during a time exposure as it lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. The Falcon 9 will deploy into orbit NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft, an X-ray astronomy mission to study black holes and neutron stars.Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

NASA's newest X-ray observatory rocketed into orbit Thursday to shed light on exploded stars, black holes and other violent high-energy events unfolding in the universe.

Webb moved to meet Ariane 5

Thursday, 09 December 2021 14:00
Image:

The James Webb Space Telescope was transferred to the final assembly building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 7 December 2021, to meet its Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Stowed inside a special 23-tonne transport container, Webb was protected and monitored throughout the transfer.

Ariane 5 was already moved to the same building on 29 November. Here, adjustable platforms allow engineers to access the launch vehicle and its payload.

The next steps are to hoist Webb to the upper platform which has been prepared so that Webb can be integrated on Ariane 5’s upper stage and then encapsulated inside

Microsoft expands Azure Space ecosystem

Thursday, 09 December 2021 13:00

Microsoft offered further proof of its intent to play a growing role in the space sector by unveiling new Azure Space products and announcing partnerships with Airbus, Kongsberg Satellite Services, STE iDirect, Orbital Insight, ESRI and Blackshark.ai.

Adelaide, Australia (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
The 'Oculus Observatory' is a new kind of space observatory, designed, built, and managed by Silentium Defence, which delivers the widest field of view, and the most cost-effective monitoring of objects in orbit, anywhere in the world. Opened today, by Head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo, 'Oculus' is located on the fringe of South Australia's dark sky reserve in the Mid-Mur
Washington DC (UPI) Dec 7, 2021
A mission overseen by the U.S. Space Force to send equipment into space aboard an Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida early Tuesday after a delay of several days. United Launch Alliance sent the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission into space from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at about 5:19 a.m. EST Tuesday. The mission lifted off carry
Reston VA (SPX) Dec 08, 2021
SES Government Solutions (SES GS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, supports the U.S. Army in conducting a series of cutting-edge trials and testing of commercial satellite constellations in multiple orbits, as well as services and ground terminals, in the U.S. Government's effort to establish Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) by 2028. Most recently, the U.S. Army announced its integrated gro
Beijing (XNA) Dec 08, 2021
The three astronauts involved in the Shenzhou XII mission have recovered well after their 3-month spaceflight and will return to regular training once related health assessments are completed. Major General Jing Haipeng, another astronaut, said on Tuesday the post-spaceflight recovery period has three phases: isolation, convalescence and observation. The three Shenzhou XII astronauts
Goleta CA (SPX) Dec 09, 2021
On April 18, 2019, the European Space Agency's Gaia Mission alerted astronomers worldwide to an unusually bright but fleeting celestial event: the gravitational microlensing event Gaia19bld. The temporary, chance alignment between two unrelated star systems produced twin images of the background star and gave scientists their first opportunity to actually observe the arc-shaped images move in re
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