Copernical Team
NASA's New Mineral Dust Detector Readies for Launch
Each year, strong winds carry more than a billion metric tons - or the weight of 10,000 aircraft carriers - of mineral dust from Earth's deserts and other dry regions through the atmosphere. While scientists know that the dust affects the environment and climate, they don't have enough data to determine, in detail, what those effects are or may be in the future - at least not yet.
Set to l Rocket Lab's MAX Flight Software surpasses 50th mission milestone
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has achieved a major milestone in Q2 with its MAX Flight Software now operating on 53 spacecraft, for a cumulative 161 years in space.
Developed by Colorado-based Advanced Solutions Inc (ASI), which was acquired by Rocket Lab in October 2021, the off-the-shelf spacecraft flight software, MAX, supports a wide range of missions and all spacecraft subsystem NASA, SpaceX launch climate science research to ISS
A SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft carrying more than 5,800 pounds of science experiments, crew supplies, and other cargo is on its way to the International Space Station after launching at 8:44 p.m. EDT Thursday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy for the company's 25th commercial resupply services missi Swarm dodges collision during climb to escape Sun's wrath
The pressure is on at ESA's mission control. An ESA satellite dodges out of the way of a mystery piece of space junk spotted just hours before a potential collision.
Now a crucial step in the spacecraft's ongoing journey to safer skies has to be quickly rescheduled, as violent solar activity related to the ramping up of the solar cycle warps Earth's atmosphere and threatens to drag it down Ukrainian Space Startups
In 2016 and 2018, I was invited to Ukraine. I gave speeches about the Space Revolution at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, in Dnipro and other venues, and met with the Mayors, leaders of the Rada, the Ukrainian cosmonaut corps, and other space leaders, as well as several groups of their rising tech community.
The folks I met there, just a couple of years after what they refer to as the "Mai Webb Images of Jupiter and More Now Available In Commissioning Data
On the heels of Tuesday's release of the first images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, data from the telescope's commissioning period is now being released on the Space Telescope Science Institute's Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. The data includes images of Jupiter and images and spectra of several asteroids, captured to test the telescope's instruments before science operations o To search for alien life, astronomers will look for clues in the atmospheres of distant planets
The ingredients for life are spread throughout the universe. While Earth is the only known place in the universe with life, detecting life beyond Earth is a major goal of modern astronomy and planetary science.
We are two scientists who study exoplanets and astrobiology. Thanks in large part to next-generation telescopes like James Webb, researchers like us will soon be able to measure the The first CERN-driven satellite successfully launched
CELESTA, the first CERN-driven satellite, successfully entered orbit during the maiden flight of Europe's Vega-C launch vehicle. Launched by the European Space Agency from the French Guiana Space Center (CSG) at 13.13 UTC on 13 July 2022, the satellite deployed smoothly and transmitted its first signals in the afternoon.
Weighing one kilogram and measuring 10 centimeters on each of its sides, CELESTA (CERN latchup and radmon experiment student satellite) is a 1U CubeSat designed to study the effects of cosmic radiation on electronics. The satellite carries a Space RadMon, a miniature version of a well-proven radiation monitoring device deployed in CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Webb begins hunt for the first stars and habitable worlds
The first stunning images from the James Webb Space Telescope were revealed this week, but its journey of cosmic discovery has only just begun.
Here is a look at two early projects that will take advantage of the orbiting observatory's powerful instruments.
The first stars and galaxies
One of the great promises of the telescope is its ability to study the earliest phase of cosmic history, shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
The more distant objects are from us, the longer it takes for their light to reach us, and so to gaze back into the distant universe is to look back in the deep past.
ESA's Swarm dodges collision during climb to escape sun's wrath
A swarm? Of bugs?
Not quite—Swarm is ESA's mission to unravel the mysteries of Earth's magnetic field. It's made up of three satellites, A, B and C—affectionately known as Alpha, Bravo and Charlie.
What happened?
A small piece of human-made rubbish circling our planet—known as space debris—was detected hurtling towards Alpha at 16:00 CEST, on 30 June. A potential collision was predicted just eight hours later, shortly after midnight. The risk of impact was high enough that Alpha needed to get out of the way—fast.
There's rubbish in space?
A lot of it. Old satellites, rocket parts and small pieces of debris left over from previous collisions and messy breakups. Each little piece can cause serious damage to a satellite, and larger ones can destroy a satellite and create large amount of new debris.
Was this the first time this has happened?
That day? Maybe. Ever? No way. Each one of the ESA's satellites has to perform on average two evasive maneuvers every year—and that's not including all the alerts they get that don't end up needing evasive action.