Orlando FL (UPI) Jan 14, 2022
Virgin Orbit kicked off an ambitious launch schedule for 2022 on Thursday by sending seven small satellites into space aboard a rocket launched from a jet high above the Pacific Ocean. The LauncherOne rocket ignited around 2:53 p.m. PST from under the wing of the company's Cosmic Girl, a modified 747, about an hour after it took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in Southern California. "

Livermore CA (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
The discovery of more than 4,500 extra-solar planets has created a need for modelling their interior structure and dynamics. As it turns out, iron plays a key role. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators have used lasers at the National Ignition Facility to experimentally determine the high-pressure melting curve and structural properties of pure iron up

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
Tom Jacobs of Bellevue, Washington, loves treasure hunts. Since 2010, the former U.S. naval officer has participated in online volunteer projects that allow anyone who is interested - "citizen scientists" - to look through NASA telescope data for signs of exoplanets, planets beyond our solar system. Now, Jacobs has helped discover a giant gaseous planet about 379 light-years from Earth, or

Montreal, Canada (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
Imagine being in a place where the winds are so strong that they move at the speed of sound. That's just one aspect of the atmosphere on XO-3b, one of a class of exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), known as hot Jupiters. The eccentric orbit of the planet also leads to seasonal variations hundreds of times stronger than what we experience on Earth. In a recent paper, a McGill-led

Maunakea HI (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
Three newly-discovered planets have been orbiting dangerously close to stars nearing the end of their lives. Out of the thousands of extrasolar planets found so far, these three gas giant planets first detected by the NASA TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) Mission, have some of the shortest-period orbits around subgiant or giant stars. One of the planets, TOI-2337b, will be consumed b

New York NY (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
Astronomers have reported a second, super-sized moon orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet beyond our solar system. If confirmed, the sighting could mean that exomoons are as common in the universe as exoplanets, and that big or small, such moons are a feature of planetary systems. But it could be a long wait. The first-ever sighting of an exomoon four years ago is still awaiting confirmation, and ver

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 14, 2022
Two new studies using data from NASA's retired Spitzer Space Telescope shed light on giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs, objects that aren't quite stars but aren't quite planets either. Both studies will be the focus of virtual news conferences hosted by the American Astronomical Society on Jan. 13. One investigation shows that the weather on brown dwarfs - which form like stars but don't h

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
Organic molecules found in a meteorite that hurtled to Earth from Mars were synthesized during interactions between water and rocks that occurred on the Red Planet about 4 billion years ago, according to new analysis led by Carnegie's Andrew Steele and published by Science. The meteorite, called Allan Hills (ALH) 84001, was discovered in the Antarctic in 1984 and is considered one of the o

Toronto, Canada (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
MDA Ltd. has announced a contract with an undisclosed US-based space company for a key landing sensor for a 2023 mission to the Moon. This award was made as part of the company's project involving NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. "Momentum is building as governments and private sector organizations work hand in glove on a shared mission that will take us back tow

Cambridge UK (SPX) Jan 14, 2022
Scientists have shown how the freezing of a 'slushy' ocean of magma may be responsible for the composition of the Moon's crust. The scientists, from the University of Cambridge and the Ecole normale superieure de Lyon, have proposed a new model of crystallisation, where crystals remained suspended in liquid magma over hundreds of millions of years as the lunar 'slush' froze and solidified.