The role of reentries
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 11:38Juno data shatter ideas about origin of Zodiacal Light
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Look up to the night sky just before dawn, or after dusk, and you might see a faint column of light extending up from the horizon. That luminous glow is the zodiacal light, or sunlight reflected toward Earth by a cloud of tiny dust particles orbiting the Sun. Astronomers have long thought that the dust is brought into the inner solar system by a few of the asteroid and comet families that ventur
Breaking the warp barrier for faster-than-light travel
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10If travel to distant stars within an individual's lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein's theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of hypothetical particles and states of matter that have "exotic" physical properties such as ne
Microscopic wormholes possible in theory
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Wormholes play a key role in many science fiction films - often as a shortcut between two distant points in space. In physics, however, these tunnels in spacetime have remained purely hypothetical. An international team led by Dr. Jose Luis Blazquez-Salcedo of the University of Oldenburg has now presented a new theoretical model in the science journal Physical Review Letters that makes microscop
Launch of Space provider "beyond gravity"
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10RUAG International shall become "beyond gravity" - an agile leading-edge technology provider for space. The company is withdrawing completely from the remaining military-related business and will continue to develop the... From a state-owned enterprise to a startup - CEO Andre Wall has set his sights on nothing less than this transformation, in the future RUAG International with solely foc
Satellite company Spire Global plans to expand with new funds
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10A San Francisco company with about 100 satellites in orbit for weather and transportation monitoring has plans to expand after listing its stock for public trading this summer. Spire Global is confident it can use its existing satellites to produce much more data and attract new customers with $475 million in cash it expects to raise by going public, CEO Peter Platzer said in an interview
Stacking complete for twin Space Launch System rocket boosters
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Stacking is complete for the twin Space Launch System (SLS) solid rocket boosters for NASA's Artemis I mission. Over several weeks, workers used one of five massive cranes to place 10 booster segments and nose assemblies on the mobile launcher inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers with Exploration Ground Systems placed the first seg
SpaceX plans Starlink launch, seeks approval of Internet service for vehicles
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to launch 60 Starlink broadband Internet satellites from Florida on Tuesday, while the company seeks federal approval to beam the service to trucks, boats and aircraft around the world. The launch is planned for 9:50 p.m. EST aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The weather is expected to be nearly perfect for la
A billion years from now, a lack of oxygen will wipe out life on Earth
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Earth will not be able to support and sustain life forever. Our oxygen-rich atmosphere may only last another billion years, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience. As our Sun ages, it is becoming more luminous, meaning that in the future Earth will receive more solar energy. This increased energy will affect the surface of the planet, speeding up the weathering of silicate rocks suc
How fast is the universe expanding? Galaxies provide one answer
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Determining how rapidly the universe is expanding is key to understanding our cosmic fate, but with more precise data has come a conundrum: Estimates based on measurements within our local universe don't agree with extrapolations from the era shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. A new estimate of the local expansion rate - the Hubble constant, or H0 (H-naught) - reinforces th
Establishing the origin of solar-mass black holes and the connection to dark matter
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10What is the origin of black holes and how is that question connected with another mystery, the nature of dark matter? Dark matter comprises the majority of matter in the Universe, but its nature remains unknown. Multiple gravitational wave detections of merging black holes have been identified within the last few years by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), comm
Most distant cosmic jet providing clues about early universe
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 07:10Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have found and studied the most distant cosmic jet discovered so far - a jet of material propelled to nearly the speed of light by the supermassive black hole in a quasar some 13 billion light-years from Earth. The quasar is seen as it was when the universe was only 780 m
NASA confirms plan to fly astronaut on upcoming Soyuz mission
Tuesday, 09 March 2021 03:14WASHINGTON — A NASA astronaut will fly on a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station in April, as the agency confirmed a peculiar arrangement for obtaining a seat on the Russian spacecraft.
NASA said March 9 that Mark Vande Hei will join the crew of the Soyuz MS-18 mission to the station, launching April 9.
Space Force awards ULA, SpaceX contracts for four national security missions
Monday, 08 March 2021 22:54WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded United Launch Alliance and SpaceX contracts for four National Security Space Launch Phase 2 missions scheduled for 2023, the Pentagon announced March 9.
ULA received $224. 2 million for two missions named USSF-112 and USSF-87.
RUAG International transforms into space-focused ‘beyond gravity’
Monday, 08 March 2021 22:41TAMPA, Fla. — Swiss component maker RUAG International is shedding its military businesses to focus solely on space, transforming into a subsystems provider to be called ‘beyond gravity.’
The new company will look to invest in newspace solutions to expand internationally, with a particular focus on the U.S.