
Copernical Team
Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
Metamaterial tiles boost sensitivity of large telescopes
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
A multi-institutional group of researchers has developed new metamaterial tiles that will help improve the sensitivity of telescopes being built at the preeminent Simons Observatory in Chile. The tiles have been incorporated into receivers that will be deployed at the observatory by 2022.
The Simons Observatory is the center of an ambitious effort to measure the cosmic microwave background

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
Extreme black holes have hair that can be combed
La Jolla CA (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
Black holes are considered amongst the most mysterious objects in the universe. Part of their intrigue arises from the fact that they are actually amongst the simplest solutions to Einstein's field equations of general relativity.
In fact, black holes can be fully characterized by only three physical quantities: their mass, spin and charge. Since they have no additional "hairy" attributes

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
Purdue scientist ready for Mars rover touchdown
West Lafayette IN (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
The Mars Perseverance Rover will fly 300 million miles over almost seven months, but the seven minutes spent waiting to receive a radio signal confirming the rover has landed will seem like an eternity for scientists and researchers back on Earth.
That wait is dubbed the "seven minutes of terror" and Briony Horgan, Purdue University associate professor of planetary science, calls it the sc

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
Moon rock on Joe Biden's desk raises hopes for lunar return
Washington DC (UPI) Jan 26, 2021
A moon rock that President Joe Biden has placed in the Oval Office came from the last Apollo mission in 1972, raising hopes that he will support a new lunar landing program already underway.
The White House said the moon rock was part of Biden's goal to have the office reflect the best of American accomplishments.
Astronauts chipped the rock from a large boulder at the base of th

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
OSIRIS-REx mission set for May departure from Bennu back to Earth
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
On May 10, NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will say farewell to asteroid Bennu and begin its journey back to Earth.
During its Oct. 20, 2020, sample collection event, the spacecraft collected a substantial amount of material from Bennu's surface, likely exceeding the mission's requirement of 2 ounces (60

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
Axiom Space reveals historic first private crew to visit International Space Station
Houston TX (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
Axiom Space on Tuesday announced its crew for humankind's first flight of a group of private individuals to a Low Earth Orbit destination - the first-ever entirely private mission proposed to fly to the International Space Station (ISS).
The proposed historic Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) will consist of: former NASA astronaut and Axiom vice president Michael Lopez-Alegria as commander; American

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
China's first liquid/solid fueld rocket to make 2021 maiden flight
Shanghai (XNA) Jan 27, 2021
Long March-6A, China's first carrier rocket powered by a solid and liquid engine, will make its maiden flight in 2021, its developer said.
Long March-6A, a new generation medium-launch vehicle, can be powered by different numbers of liquid and solid engines to achieve different carrying capacity levels, which is more cost-effective, according to the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Scienc

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Tuesday, 26 January 2021 07:13
Virgin Orbit to launch first satellite for Dutch Ministry Of Defense
Long Beach CA (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
Virgin Orbit has been selected by the Dutch space engineering company Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS) to launch the Royal Netherlands Air Force's (RNLAF) first ever satellite, a 6U CubeSat called BRIK-II.
Designed and integrated by ISIS, BRIK-II will serve as a testbed for various communications experiments and demonstrate how nanosatellites can provide a meaningful contribution to mi

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Monday, 25 January 2021 17:42
1st private space crew paying $55M each to fly to station

The first private space station crew was introduced Tuesday: Three men who are each paying $55 million to fly on a SpaceX rocket.
They'll be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.
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Monday, 25 January 2021 20:32
Barbs fly over satellite projects from Musk, Bezos

A spat erupted Tuesday between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as the tech titans' space firms exchanged barbs over their rival satellite internet projects being evaluated by regulators.
Amazon, founded and led by Bezos, put out a statement claiming Musk's rival SpaceX project Starlink was seeking design changes that could "create a more dangerous environment for collisions in space" and also increase radio interference.
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