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A ‘do not touch’ directive applies to both a Matisse painting and this Matiss experiment on board the International Space Station.

Designed to test the antibacterial properties of hydrophobic (or water-repelling) surfaces on the Station, the sample holders of the upgraded Matiss-2.5 experiment have done their work for roughly a year on board and are now back on Earth for analysis.  

Bacteria are a big problem in space as they tend to build up in the constantly-recycled atmosphere of the Space Station. For the six astronauts living in humanity’s habitat in space, keeping the Station clean is an important

An ESA-supported effort put an intelligent road up in Finnish Lapland through its paces, assessing its suitability for testing autonomous vehicles in some of Europe’s most challenging driving conditions.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are planning a spacewalk to install a high-speed satellite link that will improve their connections with Europe.

Beijing (XNA) Jan 19, 2021
Three major components of China's space station program have passed technical and quality assessments and are ready for upcoming missions, the China Manned Space Agency said. Experts from the agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp reviewed the design, construction and test reports on the space station's Tianhe core module, the Tianzhou 2 car

Hollywood FL (SPX) Jan 19, 2021
Sintavia, LLC, a designer and additive manufacturer of critical thermal components for the Aerospace, Defense, and Space industry, reports it has acquired two M4K-4 printers from AMCM GmbH of Starnberg, Germany. Each of the two new M4K-4s, which are stretched versions of the commercially successful EOS M400-4 printer, uses four 1kW lasers to print single-un

Munich, Germany (SPX) Jan 19, 2021
The German Astronomical Society (AG), the German association of amateur astronomers (VdS) and the Society of German-Speaking Planetariums (GDP) comment on the rapid increase in the number of satellites in the night sky. Artificial satellites have significant impact on the perception of the natural starry sky and the exploration of our universe. Astronomical research institutes, observatori

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 19, 2021
In results announced this week at the 237th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, scientists from the Sloan Digital Sky survey present the most detailed look yet at the warp of our own Galaxy. "Our usual picture of a spiral galaxy is as a flat disk, thinner than a pancake, peacefully rotating around its center," said Xinlun Cheng of the University of Virginia, the lead author of th

Green Bank WV (SPX) Jan 19, 2021
How are galaxies able to keep forming stars and planets? Astronomers from Texas Christian University are using the Green Bank Telescope to reveal more about this process, studying high-velocity clouds that are being pulled into our Milky Way galaxy by its gravitational pull. Stars and planets require large amounts of gas to form, and galaxies can run out of this cosmic building material un

Chicago IL (SPX) Jan 19, 2021
The Milky Way houses 8,292 recently discovered stellar streams - all named Theia. But Theia 456 is special. A stellar stream is a rare linear pattern - rather than a cluster - of stars. After combining multiple datasets captured by the Gaia space telescope, a team of astrophysicists found that all of Theia 456's 468 stars were born at the same time and are traveling in the same direction a

Chicago IL (SPX) Jan 19, 2021
The Dark Energy Survey, a global collaboration including the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, has released DR2, the second data release in the survey's seven-year history. DR2 is the topic of sessions today and tomorrow at the 237th Meeting of the American Astronomical