Huntsville AL (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
NASA recently built and tested an additively-manufactured - or 3D printed - rocket engine nozzle made of aluminum, making it lighter than conventional nozzles and setting the course for deep space flights that can carry more payloads. Under the agency's Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity, engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, partnered with Eleme

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
NASA's Lucy spacecraft is preparing for its first close-up look at an asteroid. On Nov. 1, it will fly by asteroid Dinkinesh and test its instruments in preparation for visits in the next decade to multiple Trojan asteroids that circle the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter. Dinkinesh, less than half a mile, or 1 kilometer, wide, circles the Sun in the main belt of asteroids located between

Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
Heart disease is the leading cause of death globally, and once cardiovascular tissue is damaged, there's no means of restoring its function. But it's possible damaged tissue could be regenerated via stem cell therapies. To that end, a team of scientists took their research to new heights by leveraging the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory to study microgravity's effects on he

Southampton UK (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
Researchers from the University of Southampton, together with colleagues from the universities of Cambridge and Barcelona, have shown it's theoretically possible for black holes to exist in perfectly balanced pairs - held in equilibrium by a cosmological force - mimicking a single black hole. Black holes are massive astronomical objects that have such a strong gravitational pull that nothi

Munich, Germany (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
An international team has spotted a remote blast of cosmic radio waves lasting less than a millisecond. This 'fast radio burst' (FRB) is the most distant ever detected. Its source was pinned down by the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in a galaxy so far away that its light took eight billion years to reach us. The FRB is also one of the most energetic ever observ

San Diego CA (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
Everyone has an origin story, including the universe. The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation for the universe's origin - one that began 13.8 billion years ago from an incomprehensibly dense, hot pinprick that underwent an expansion so rapid that "violent" doesn't begin to capture it. About 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the cosmos cooled enough for photons to travel freely, crea

Stockholm, Sweden (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
Swedish satellite company Ovzon, in collaboration with SpaceX and Maxar, is working towards a launch window of early December for its Ovzon 3 satellite. "The final assembly and testing of the satellite, in addition to the complex modeling associated with changing launch vehicles, has progressed well and according to plan in recent months. We are now moving forward with further detailed lau

Baltimore MD (SPX) Oct 20, 2023
Jupiter has some of the most conspicuous atmospheric features in our solar system. The planet's Great Red Spot, large enough to envelop Earth, is nearly as well known as some of the various rivers and mountains on the planet we call home. However, much like Earth, Jupiter is ever-changing, and there's much about the planet we have yet to learn. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is unlockin

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP) Oct 20, 2023
Surrounded by the vast sand dunes of the Kazakh steppe, on satellite images the city of Baikonur looks like an oasis of glimmering lights in an otherwise dry desert. Leased by Russia from Kazakhstan since the collapse of the USSR, the legendary launch site was for years the heart of the Soviet space programme, sending both the first artificial satellite and human into space. Russia, whos

Jiuquan (XNA) Oct 20, 2023
The combination of the Shenzhou-17 crewed spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket was transferred to the launching area on Thursday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said. According to the CMSA, the facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition, and various pre-launch function checks and joint tests will be carried out as planned. The spaceship will be launched