Astronaut selection: stage one complete
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 07:05
The next stage of ESA’s astronaut selection is underway, with around 1391 applicants invited to a full day of testing at a facility in Europe.
Steady driving towards ExoMars launch
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 07:00
The first simulation of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover driving off its landing platform closed out an incredible year of preparations as the mission now marches with confidence towards a September launch.
quub To Demonstrate Cybersecurity with Smallsat
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 06:02
Photon pairs are more sensitive to rotations than single photons
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 06:02
Pebbles before mountains
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 06:02
Hubble views a tranquil galaxy with an explosive past
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 06:02
Airbus teams with Japan telcos to study connectivity services from high-altitude platforms
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
HGC offers ultra-low latency Eyeball-as-a-Service across Asia
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
Newly discovered carbon may yield clues to ancient Mars
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
Curiosity measures intriguing carbon signature on Mars
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
New research may help scientists unravel the physics of the solar wind
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
Chinese scientists build 'Artificial Moon' to conduct experiments in low gravity
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
China conducts its first rocket launch of 2022
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
The International Space Station connected via the SpaceDataHighway
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:54
Palomar survey instrument analyzes impact of Starlink satellites
Monday, 17 January 2022 16:57
Since 2019, SpaceX has been launching an increasing number of internet satellites into orbit around Earth. The satellite constellation, called Starlink, now includes nearly 1,800 members orbiting at altitudes of about 550 kilometers. Astronomers have expressed concerns that that these objects, which can appear as streaks in telescope images, could hamper their scientific observations.
To quantify these effects, a team of researchers studied archival images captured by the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), an instrument that operates from Caltech's Palomar Observatory near San Diego. ZTF scans the entire night sky every two days, cataloging cosmic objects that explode, blink, or otherwise change over time. This includes everything from supernovae to near-Earth asteroids. The Zwicky team members say they decided to specifically study the effects of Starlink satellites because they currently represent the largest low-Earth orbit, or LEO, constellation, and they have well-characterized orbits.
The findings, reported in the January 17 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, shows 5,301 satellite streaks appear in archival images taken between November 2019 and September 2021. The streaks are most apparent in so-called twilight observations, those taken at dawn or dusk, which are important for finding near-Earth asteroids that appear close to the sun in the sky.