Plasma jets reveal magnetic fields far, far away
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 07:26
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For the first time, researchers have observed plasma jets interacting with magnetic fields in a massive galaxy cluster 600 million light years away, thanks to the help of radio telescopes and supercomputer simulations. The findings, published in the journal Nature, can help clarify how such galaxy clusters evolve.
Galaxy clusters can contain up to thousands of galaxies bound together by gr Alpha Data Launches new Space Development Kit
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 07:26 Write a comment
Alpha Data, in collaboration with Xilinx and Texas Instruments, has launched a new Space Development Kit, the ADA-SDEV-KIT3, which will help users to rapidly test the hardware and software setups that look to incorporate the Xilinx Radiation Tolerant Kintex UltraScale XQRKU060 Space-Grade FPGA.
Alpha Data's new Space Development Kit, the ADA-SDEV-KIT3, is a development kit for the Xilinx R Pacific sees a 'Blood Moon' rising
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 06:32 Write a comment
Stargazers across the Pacific Rim will cast their eyes skyward on Wednesday night to witness a rare "Super Blood Moon", as the heavens align to bring an extra-spectacular lunar eclipse.
The first total lunar eclipse in two years will happen at the same time as the Moon is closest to Earth, in what astronomers say will be a once-in-a-decade show.
If the skies are clear, anyone living in the Pacific between Australia and the central United States will be able to see an enormous, bright, orangey-red Moon.
The main event will be between 1111-1125 GMT—late evening in Sydney and pre-dawn in Los Angeles—when the Moon will be entirely in the Earth's shadow.
The Moon will darken and turn red—a result of sunlight refracting off the Earth's rim onto the lunar surface—basking our satellite in a sunrise- or sunset-tinged glow.
NOAA adopts portfolio approach to Earth-observation mission
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 20:58 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO – At the direction of the Biden Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) is adopting a portfolio approach.
“For us that means not just launching one satellite at a time and building that satellite really well, but seeing how all the systems work together,” Stephen Volz, Assistant Administrator for NOAA NESDIS, said May 25 during a Space Foundation webinar.
Telesat unlikely to get a C-band windfall for Lightspeed network
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 19:50 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Canada’s decision to hold a public auction of C-band spectrum means it is unlikely to be a major funding source for Telesat’s $5 billion Lightspeed satellite constellation.
Telesat had proposed running the auction itself, much like satellite operators did for selling similar frequencies in the United States — before the Federal Communications Commission also opted for a publicly run process.
Air Force nominee vows support for Space Force, will review current plans
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 16:10 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — President Biden’s nominee to be secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall told lawmakers May 25 he will ensure the Space Force gets the necessary resources to continue to stand up units and acquire new systems.
PUNCH mission passes important milestone
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 15:32 Write a comment
On May 20, 2021, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission achieved an important milestone, passing NASA's Preliminary Design Review (PDR) of its spacecraft and payload experiments.
Viasat asks FCC to halt Starlink launches while it seeks court ruling
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 14:29 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Satellite operator Viasat is asking the FCC to stop SpaceX from launching more Starlink satellites as it heads to court to compel a thorough environmental review of the rapidly growing megaconstellation.
Whitson to command second Axiom Space mission
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 14:00 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — A former NASA astronaut who holds the record for the most time spent in space by an American will command Axiom Space’s second commercial mission to the International Space Station, the company announced May 25.
Axiom said that Peggy Whitson will serve as commander of the Ax-2 mission to the ISS.
Op-ed | America’s future in space is nuclear
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 13:15 Write a comment
Public interest and recent accomplishments in civil and scientific spaceflight are running at historically high levels. The United States lands rovers on Mars and flies ‘helicopters’ through its tenuous atmosphere. SpaceX and NASA have partnered for three successful human spaceflight launches from U.S.
CesiumAstro unveils plan to test active phased array in orbit
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 13:00 Write a comment
SAN FRANCISCO — CesiumAstro is preparing to launch two cubesats in September to demonstrate the firm’s active phased array technology and to provide customers with an on-orbit testbed.
Through the Cesium Mission 1 announced May 25, Cesium plans to demonstrate proprietary hardware and software in addition to testing intersatellite links and Ka-band communications.
With Artemis Accords on the table, South Korea, U.S. to widen cooperation in space exploration, security
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 12:38 Write a comment
SEOUL, South Korea — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden have promised to cooperate toward South Korea signing the Artemis Accords, a set of principles governing norms of behavior for those who want to participate in the NASA-led Artemis lunar exploration program.
New research to provide safer and more accurate space weather predictions
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 12:10 Write a comment
A team of space weather experts from Northumbria University has been awarded more than £400,000 to explore how to better predict the conditions in near-Earth space.
The environment in the radiation belts 60,000km above the Earth can be highly dangerous—both to human life and to technology such as satellites launched into orbit.
However, the method currently used to predict when and where periods of high radiation might occur are based on average measurements, meaning scientists are unable to accurately forecast particularly dangerous events.
Professor Clare Watt, a space plasma physicist from Northumbria's Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, is leading a new project which aims to find a way of forecasting space weather more accurately—something which would have huge economic benefits.
Funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the project will combine spacecraft observations and samples of the atmosphere at different positions in near-Earth space, with numerical models which use that data to predict dangerous weather conditions.
Speaking about the research, Professor Watt said: "The near-Earth environment is so variable because our Sun is a magnetically variable star affecting both electromagnetic waves and high-energy particles in the area of space close to Earth.
Pacific readies for 'Super Blood Moon' celestial show
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 11:57 Write a comment
Stargazers across the Pacific Rim can cast their eyes skyward on Wednesday night and behold a "Super Blood Moon", as the heavens align to bring a rare celestial twin treat.
The first total lunar eclipse in two years is happening at the same time as the moon is closest to Earth, in what astronomers say will be a once-in-a-decade show.
If the skies are clear, anyone living between Australia and the central United States will be able to see an enormous, bright, orangey-red moon.
The main event will be between 1111-1125 GMT—late evening in Sydney and pre-dawn in Los Angeles—when the moon will be entirely in the Earth's shadow.
The moon will darken and turn red—a result of sunlight refracting off the Earth's rim onto the lunar surface—basking our satellite in a sunrise- or sunset-tinged glow.
Why the sun's atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 11:56 Write a comment
The visible surface of the sun, or the photosphere, is around 6,000°C. But a few thousand kilometers above it—a small distance when we consider the size of the sun—the solar atmosphere, also called the corona, is hundreds of times hotter, reaching a million degrees celsius or higher.
This spike in temperature, despite the increased distance from the sun's main energy source, has been observed in most stars, and represents a fundamental puzzle that astrophysicists have mulled over for decades.
In 1942, the Swedish scientist Hannes Alfvén proposed an explanation. He theorized that magnetized waves of plasma could carry huge amounts of energy along the sun's magnetic field from its interior to the corona, bypassing the photosphere before exploding with heat in the sun's upper atmosphere.
The theory had been tentatively accepted—but we still needed proof, in the form of empirical observation, that these waves existed. Our recent study has finally achieved this, validating Alfvén's 80 year-old theory and taking us a step closer to harnessing this high-energy phenomenon here on Earth.