Washington DC (UPI) Jul 14, 2021
China has harvested its first batch of rice grown from seeds that traveled to space on the country's Chang'e-5 lunar probe, officials said Sunday. About 40 grams of seeds made the trip to the moon last November. Some seeds can mutate and produce higher yields when planted on Earth after being exposed to cosmic radiation and zero gravity. The Chinese have been sending seeds into space

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 14, 2021
It's easy to see the impact of space debris on our Moon, where the ancient, battered surface is covered with craters and scars. Jupiter's icy moon Europa withstands a similar trouncing - along with a punch of super-intense radiation. As the uppermost surface of the icy moon churns, material brought to the surface is zapped by high-energy electron radiation accelerated by Jupiter. NASA-fund

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 15, 2021
On June 7, 2021, NASA's Juno spacecraft flew closer to Jupiter's ice-encrusted moon Ganymede than any spacecraft in more than two decades. Less than a day later, Juno made its 34th flyby of Jupiter, racing over its roiling atmosphere from pole to pole in less than three hours. Using the spacecraft's JunoCam imager, the mission team has put together this animation to provide a "starship captain"

Paris, France (SPX) Jul 15, 2021
The European Space Agency (ESA), as part of its Ariane 6 Competitiveness Improvement Program, has chosen ArianeGroup to develop and build a complementary stage (kick-stage) for Ariane 6, called ASTRIS, which will enable Arianespace, operator of the new European launcher, to place with even greater efficiency a larger number of payloads in different orbits, or to inject satellites into geostation

Iowa City IA (SPX) Jul 15, 2021
As the Parker Solar Probe ventures closer to the sun, we are learning new things about our home star. In a new study, physicists led by the University of Iowa report the first definitive measurements of the sun's electric field, and how the electric field interacts with the solar wind, the fast-flowing current of charged particles that can affect activities on Earth, from satellites to tel

Baltimore MD (SPX) Jul 15, 2021
NASA has identified the possible cause of the payload computer problem that suspended Hubble Space Telescope science operations on June 13. The telescope itself and science instruments remain healthy and in a safe configuration. The payload computer resides in the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling (SI C&DH) unit. It controls, coordinates, and monitors Hubble's science instrument

Heidelberg, Germany (SPX) Jul 15, 2021
An international team of astronomers, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b at a distance of 300 light-years in the constellation Musca (Fly). The weak signal was measured with ESO's Very Larg

Tel-Aviv, Israel (SPX) Jul 15, 2021
Dr. Iair Arcavi, a Tel Aviv University researcher at the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, participated in a study that discovered a new type of stellar explosion - an electron-capture supernova. While they have been theorized for 40 years, real-world examples have been elusive. Such supernovas arise from the explosions of stars 8-9 times the mass of the sun. The discovery a

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s pick to serve as undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, Michael Brown, has withdrawn his nomination.

Brown is the director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), the Pentagon’s commercial outreach office based in Silicon Valley.

TAMPA, Fla. — Space startup investor Seraphim Capital’s investment trust started trading on the London Stock Exchange July 14, raising about $250 million for larger international acquisitions.

The listing gives the group “the firepower to become really impactful in this market,” Seraphim Capital CEO Mark Boggett told SpaceNews.