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Munich, Germany (ESA) Jan 11, 2021
To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of new star formation within such systems. These interactions are a key aspect of galaxy evolution and are among the most spectacular events in the lifetime of a galaxy. It
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Washington DC (UPI) Jan 7, 2021
The brown dwarf closest to our solar system hosts wind bands and jet streams, according to new analysis of the object's atmosphere. Brown dwarfs are too big to be planets but not quite massive enough to generate fusion, a prerequisite for stellar classification. Though hot in their infancy, brown dwarfs steadily cool as they mature, making them difficult to spot and study. Becaus

Chandra Studies Extraordinary Magnetar

Wednesday, 13 January 2021 06:00
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Huntsville AL (SPX) Jan 11, 2021
In 2020, astronomers added a new member to an exclusive family of exotic objects with the discovery of a magnetar. New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory help support the idea that it is also a pulsar, meaning it emits regular pulses of light. Magnetars are a type of neutron star, an incredibly dense object mainly made up of tightly packed neutron, which forms from the coll
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Trieste, Italy (SPX) Jan 12, 2021
Two billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was still very young. However, thousands of huge galaxies, rich in stars and dust, were already formed. An international study, led by SISSA - Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, now explains how this was possible. Scientists combined observational and theoretical methods to identify the physical processes behind their evolu
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Intuitive Machines lander

WASHINGTON — SpaceX secured contracts Jan. 13 for the launches of a commercial lunar lander mission backed by NASA as well as a privately funded satellite to track methane emissions.

Intuitive Machines announced that it selected SpaceX for the launch of its IM-2 lunar lander mission on a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than 2022.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, was picked as the future location of U.S. Space Command’s headquarters.

Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett announced the decision Jan. 13.

The selection of Redstone Arsenal is a huge win for Huntsville, nicknamed “Rocket City.

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A robot made of ice could adapt and repair itself on other worlds
The IceBot is just a concept right now, with some structural parts made of ice. Credit: GRASP Lab

Some of the most tantalizing targets in space exploration are frozen ice worlds. Take Jupiter's moon Europa, for instance. Its warm, salty subsurface ocean is buried under a moon-wide sheet of ice. What's the best way to explore it?

Maybe an ice could play a role.

Though the world's space agencies—especially NASA—are getting better and better at building robots to explore places like Mars, those robots have limitations. Perhaps chief among those limitations is the possibility of breakdown. Once a rover on Mars—or somewhere even more distant—breaks down, it's game over. There's no feasible way to repair something like MSL Curiosity if it breaks down while exploring the Martian surface.

But what if the world being explored was a frozen one, and the robot was made of ice? Could icy robots perform self-repair, even in a limited fashion? Could they actually be manufactured and assembled there, even partly?

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Join our start-of-year press conference with ESA Director General Jan Wörner and future Director General Josef Aschbacher plus other ESA Directors when they meet online on Thursday, 14 January 2021. The event starts at 09:30 GMT / 10:30 CET. Watch live on #ESAwebTV.

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WASHINGTON — Blue Origin is gearing up for the next test flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle as soon as Jan. 14.

Temporary flight restrictions published by the Federal Aviation Administration Jan. 12 will close airspace above Blue Origin’s West Texas test site from Jan.

Image: Underwater astronaut training

Tuesday, 12 January 2021 12:29
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Image: Underwater astronaut training
Credit: NASA EVA NBL

Prepping for a spacewalk typically means diving underwater to rehearse and fine-tune operations.

In 2016, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst performed such an underwater rehearsal for the ColKa high speed radio, the brown box imaged above, that will be installed this month on the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover will integrate the small fridge-sized device outside the European Columbus module during a spacewalk scheduled this year. ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will be at NASA's mission control directing the spacewalkers as Capcom. The Columbus Ka-band terminal, nicknamed "ColKa," will enable faster with Europe.

Orbiting the planet every 90 minutes means the Space Station is constantly making and breaking short links with ground stations on Earth as it passes over them at a height of 400 km.

With Colka, a European telecommunications satellite in can pick up data sent from the Columbus module. This satellite is part of the European Data Relay System and will be able to directly relay the signals from Columbus to European soil via a ground in Harwell, in the U.K.

NASA and Japan finalize Gateway agreement

Tuesday, 12 January 2021 11:18
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lunar Gateway

WASHINGTON — NASA and the Japanese government have completed an agreement outlining Japan’s contributions to the lunar Gateway as NASA works to wrap up international contributions to the outpost.

NASA announced Jan. 12 it signed an agreement with the Japanese government governing Japan’s contributions to the Gateway.

Spain’s chilly blanket

Tuesday, 12 January 2021 10:54
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The heavy snowfall that hit Spain a few days ago still lies heavy across much of the country as this Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite image shows. Image: The heavy snowfall that hit Spain a few days ago still lies heavy across much of the country as this Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite image shows.
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Brussels, Belgium (SPX) Jan 13, 2021
Exotrail reports full success of first-ever cubesat mission equipped with Hall-effect electric propulsion technology. Through an In-Orbit Demonstration mission launched to Low Earth Orbit on 7th of November 2020 onboard a PSLV rocket, Exotrail nominally ignited its ExoMGTM Hall-effect electric propulsion system on the first attempt. Small satellite constellations will now be able to quickl
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Paris, France (ESA) Jan 13, 2021
Prepping for a spacewalk typically means diving underwater to rehearse and fine-tune operations. In 2016, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst performed such an underwater rehearsal for the Colka high speed radio, the brown box imaged above, that will be installed this month on the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover will integrate the small fridge-si
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Houston TX (SPX) Jan 12, 2021
As the International Space Station orbits Earth, its four pairs of solar arrays soak up the sun's energy to provide electrical power for the numerous research and science investigations conducted every day, as well as the continued operations of the orbiting platform. The space station is the springboard to NASA's Artemis missions to the Moon, a platform to test advanced technologies for h
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