...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

news Space News

Search News Archive

Title

Article text

Keyword

Write a comment
Image:

For the first time, astronomers have seen light coming from behind a black hole.

Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes, an international team of scientists led by Dan Wilkins of Stanford University in the USA observed extremely bright flares of X-ray light coming from around a black hole.

The X-ray flares echoed off of the gas falling into the black hole, and as the flares were subsiding, the telescopes picked up fainter flashes, which were the echoes of the flares bouncing off the gas behind the black hole.

This supermassive black hole is 10 million times as massive as our

Write a comment

We are on the verge of a new era in space security: the age of diverse and highly capable dual-use space systems that can serve both peaceful and anti-satellite (ASAT) purposes. These new systems, such as spacecraft capable of undertaking rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs), ground-based lasers capable of interacting with space objects, and actions in cyberspace, cannot feasibly be banned; nor should they be, as they promise immense civil and commercial benefits.

Write a comment
Will AI leave human astronomers in the stardust?
Credit: Hubble Space Telescope

Machine learning is coming for astronomy. But that doesn't mean astronomers and citizen scientists are obsolete. In fact, it may mean exactly the opposite.

When you think of a galaxy, the first thing that comes to mind is a spiral. There's a dense cluster of stars in the core and some big, sweeping spiral arms out to the side.

But that's not the only kind of galaxy out there. Like people, come in all shapes and sizes. There's disk shaped ones and spherical ones, neat barred spirals and messy irregulars.

Galaxies, sorted

That shape isn't just important for your sense of aesthetics when you're picking a desktop wallpaper. It also tells us a whole lot about the universe, according to Mitchell Cavanagh, Ph.D. candidate at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).

"We call ellipticals early types because they're more prominent as you go out to higher redshifts in the earlier universe. Then your spirals, we tend to call late type because they're more common when we look at the more-recent universe at lower redshift galaxies close to us," Mitchell says.

Write a comment
Rocket tanks of carbon fibre reinforced plastic proven possible
MT Aerospace and ArianeGroup signed contracts with ESA on 14 May 2019 to develop Phoebus, a prototype of a highly-optimised black upper stage. Rocket upper stages are commonly made of aluminium but switching to carbon composites lowers cost and could yield two tonnes spare payload capacity. Credit: ArianeGroup

Future rockets could fly with tanks made of lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastic thanks to ground-breaking research carried out within ESA's Future Launchers Preparatory Program.

Building on earlier studies, MT Aerospace in Germany has demonstrated a novel design of a small scale made of a unique carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) that is not only leak-proof with , but also compatible with , without the use of a metal liner.

First test of Europe's new space brain

Wednesday, 28 July 2021 12:30
Write a comment
First test of Europe’s new space brain
ESA builds, maintains and upgrades the infrastructure on ground to fly missions: the control rooms, mission control systems and deep-space tracking stations are just some of the most visible elements. These work together with ‘unseen’ technology sourced from European industry, including mission-critical software, networks, monitoring systems and test and validation facilities. Credit: ESA

ESA has successfully operated a spacecraft with Europe's next-generation mission control system for the first time. The powerful software, named the "European Ground System—Common Core' (EGS-CC), will be the 'brain' of all European spaceflight operations in the years to come, and promises new possibilities for how future missions will fly.

Write a comment
MT Aerospace tested the strength of a subscale tank made from carbon-fibre reinforced plastic

Future rockets could fly with tanks made of lightweight carbon fibre reinforced plastic thanks to ground-breaking research carried out within ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme.

Watch the launch of Eutelsat Quantum

Wednesday, 28 July 2021 09:43
Write a comment
ESA Web TV image for the launch of Eutelsat Quantum

Follow the launch on 30 July of a sophisticated telecommunications satellite capable of being completely repurposed while in space.

Space suspense

Wednesday, 28 July 2021 07:18
Write a comment
Space suspense Image: Space suspense
Write a comment
Reno NV (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Recent developments related to Space are simply astonishing. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, went to space just a few days ago on July 20, 2021 on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. Blue Origin is a space tourism company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000. In addition to the brother of Jeff Bezos (Mark Bezos), the two other passengers in the trip were Wally Funk (82), who became the oldest person to go
Write a comment
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Two asteroids (203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia) have been discovered with a redder spectrum than any other object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The discovery was led by HASEGAWA Sunao, Associate Senior Researcher at ISAS JAXA, with an international team of researchers from MIT, the University of Hawai'i, Seoul National University, Kyoto University and the Laboratoire d'Astrophysiqu
Write a comment
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 28, 2021
Ingenuity has come a long way from its original airfield, "Wright Brothers Field," which is 0.64 miles (1.04 kilometers) to the northeast of our current location. We got here during Flight 9, an endeavor that had our helicopter breaking several of our own records as we relocated to the far side of the "Seitah" geologic unit. Covering 2,051 feet (625 meters), Flight 9 was executed so that Ingenui
Write a comment
London, Canada (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
As billionaires battle it out in a space race that only a handful of the world's richest persons can play, a highly inclusive international project is looking in the other direction - what's flying towards Earth - and all are welcome. Led by Western University's Denis Vida, the Global Meteor Network (GMN) is a collection of more than 450 video meteor cameras hosted by amateur astronomers a
Write a comment
New York NY (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Magnetic fields around black holes decay quickly, report researchers from the Flatiron Institute, Columbia University and Princeton University. This finding backs up the so-called 'no-hair conjecture' predicted by Einstein's general relativity. Black holes aren't what they eat. Einstein's general relativity predicts that no matter what a black hole consumes, its external properties depend

On the hunt for 'hierarchical' black holes

Wednesday, 28 July 2021 06:45
Write a comment
Birmingham UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Black holes, detected by their gravitational wave signal as they collide with other black holes, could be the product of much earlier parent collisions. Such an event has only been hinted at so far, but scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK, and Northwestern University in the US, believe we are getting close to tracking down the first of these so-called 'hierarchical' black
Write a comment
Cambridge UK (SPX) Jul 28, 2021
Astronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics, have shown how exoplanets in binary star systems - such as the 'Tatooine' planets spotted by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope - came into being without being destroyed in their chao
Page 1626 of 1918