Canberra, Australia (The Conversaton) May 03, 2022
When a star explodes and dies in a supernova, it takes on a new life of sorts. Pulsars are the extremely rapidly rotating objects left over after massive stars have exhausted their fuel supply. They are extremely dense, with a mass similar to the Sun crammed into a region the size of Sydney. Pulsars emit beams of radio waves from their poles. As those beams sweep across Earth, we can

Morgantown WV (SPX) May 03, 2022
A cross-disciplinary team of researchers from West Virginia University are undertaking a pioneering project in space weather research to improve modeling and forecasting of space weather to safeguard satellites in orbit and infrastructure on Earth. Space weather is a relatively unexplored phenomenon that is caused by large bursts of particles released by the sun. The unusually strong burst

Adelaide, Australia (SPX) May 03, 2022
SmartSAT CRC today announced $1 million to assist QuantX Labs in the development of its optical atomic clock satellite payload that will deliver the heart of a future Australian sovereign navigation and timing capability. This partnership will accelerate the space-qualification and commercialisation of a new type of atomic clock. QuantX's clock delivers a quantum leap in timing performance

Boston MA (SPX) May 03, 2022
Scattered across our Milky Way galaxy are tens of millions of black holes - immensely strong gravitational wells of spacetime, from which infalling matter, and even light, can never escape. Black holes are dark by definition, except on the rare occasions when they feed. As a black hole pulls in gas and dust from an orbiting star, it can give off spectacular bursts of X-ray light that bounce and

Beijing (XNA) May 03, 2022
The Mars rover Zhurong has traveled more than 1.9 km since it first set its wheels on the surface of the planet in May last year, according to the latest data released by the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. As of Sunday, Zhurong had been operating on the surface of Mars for 342 Martian days at a distance of 240 million km from Earth. A

Abu Dhabi UAE (SPX) May 03, 2022
The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, today released stunning images of Mars' enigmatic discrete auroras, following a series of revolutionary observations that promise new answers - and new questions - about the interactions between Mars' atmosphere, the planet's magnetic fields and the solar wind. The observations include a never-bef

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 03, 2022
We have left the pediment behind and are making our way back to an alternate "MSAR" or "Mount Sharp Ascent Route." We are at the second (of three) observation stops for this area, chosen as they offer the best chance to acquire high resolution images of the structures in the buttes. We have noticed some dark layers which are reminiscent of the lenses at "The Prow" and may indicate changing grain

Vilnius, Lithuania (SPX) May 03, 2022
NanoAvionics has been selected to build a 12U nanosatellite bus for an in-orbit demonstration of NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3). This a result of a contract between NASA Ames Research Center and AST for a 12U bus to carry NASA's payload into low Earth orbit (LEO) including an approximately 800 square foot (74 square meter) composite boom and solar sail system. The aim

Edinburgh UK (SPX) May 03, 2022
British rocket company Skyrora has called on the Icelandic government to grant the licence that would end a months-long delay to Europe's largest-ever suborbital rocket launch, originally set for September 2021. With the launch from Husavik, Iceland - for which it built Europe's largest mobile spaceport - Skyrora had been ready to take a crucial next step towards its goal of completing the first

Sydney, Australia (SPX) May 03, 2022
Students of the University of Sydney's rocketry society, the USYD Rocketry Team, have their eyes firmly set on gold after successfully launching their 2022 competition rocket in New South Wales's far west. After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the team will fly to the US in June to compete at Spaceport America Cup, an international student rocketry competition held annually in New Mexico.