Euclid's large halo around indefinitely small point
Friday, 14 July 2023 05:14
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If you think it's only possible to be held in orbit around a physical 'thing' with a large mass - a planet or a star, say - you'd be wrong. It is in fact possible to orbit around an invisible point, an oasis of forces, infinitesimal in size. ESA's Euclid mission was launched on 1 July 2023 to uncover the secrets of the dark universe. Its destination? Like many astronomy missions before it, Lagra ESA Astronauts Embark on Lunar Geology Training in Norwegian Wilderness
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In the hush of a Norwegian fjord, under the spectral glow of a waning crescent Moon, ESA astronauts Alexander Gerst and Samantha Cristoforetti have started their journey into lunar geology. The astronauts have been meticulously prepared for their first field expedition, equipped with digitally enhanced toolkits and bracing for the rigors of ESA's PANGAEA course.
Adorned in state-of-the-art Sols 3887-3888: The Vastness
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Earth Planning Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2023 - A blue hue inches over the horizon illuminating a sea of rocks scattered across the landscape like the scales of a fish. Among the sea, alone in the vastness, a rover sleeps. The time is now 9:25, in a "time zone" defined for itself. The waking rover receives instructions from a tiny speck of light, far away and slowly creeping towards the other si India to try again to land spacecraft on the moon
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After a disheartening 2019 moon landing failure, India's lunar exploration effort will resume Friday with the planned launch of Chandrayaan-3, a sophisticated, automated mission to touch down softly and demonstrate how its rover can navigate the surface.
Liftoff is planned for 5:05 p.m. EDT from the Satish Dhawan Space Station in Andhra province of Sriharikota just above Chennai on the sou ESA ground facilities support ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission
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The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to support the Chandrayaan-3 mission, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This Moon mission features a lunar lander and a rover, tasked to perform scientific operations on the lunar surface for a period of 14 days. To ensure the mission's success, ground stations worldwide, coordinated by ESA and NASA, are se Astronomers find answers to mysterious action of ghost stars in our Galaxy
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A collaboration of scientists from The University of Manchester and the University of Hong Kong have found a source for the mysterious alignment of stars near the Galactic Centre.
The alignment of planetary nebulae was discovered ten years ago by a Manchester PhD student, Bryan Rees, but has remained unexplained.
New data obtained with the European Southern Observatory Very Large Tel Astronomers identify the coldest star yet that emits radio waves
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Astronomers at the University of Sydney have shown that a small, faint star is the coldest on record to produce emission at radio wavelength.
The 'ultracool brown dwarf' examined in the study is a ball of gas simmering at about 425 degrees centigrade - cooler than a typical campfire - without burning nuclear fuel.
By contrast, the surface temperature of the Sun, a nuclear inferno, is India is set to launch a lander and rover to explore the moon's south pole
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Maxar unveils platform to speed up imagery access
Thursday, 13 July 2023 20:40 Write a comment
MGP platform is designed to simplify and speed up access to the Colorado company’s high-resolution Earth imagery.
The post Maxar unveils platform to speed up imagery access appeared first on SpaceNews.
Preventing traffic accidents to the moon and back
Thursday, 13 July 2023 19:18
Virgin Galactic plans its next commercial flight to the edge of space for August
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Astronauts' new rides for Artemis missions arrive at Kennedy Space Center
Thursday, 13 July 2023 19:12 Write a comment
While the next humans to fly to the moon will rely on the Orion spacecraft for the nearly half-million-mile trip next year on the Artemis II mission, the final 9 miles to the launch pad will come while riding in one of three new astronaut transports now parked at Kennedy Space Center.
Three curvy electric vehicles officially referred to as CTVs, as in crew transportation vehicles, were built by California-based Canoo Technologies and arrived to KSC on Tuesday. They will be used during training leading up to the Artemis II flight slated for no earlier than November 2024.
That mission will fly the crew of three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut on a 10-day mission around the moon, the first time humans will fly in the Orion capsule launching atop the powerful Space Launch System rocket. It will pave the way for Artemis III no earlier than 2025 that seeks to return humans including the first woman to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.
The new zero-emission CTVs are equipped to bring the four crew suited up in their spacesuits along with support personnel including a spacesuit technician on the ride from the Neil A.
Centaur modifications push first Vulcan launch to fourth quarter
Thursday, 13 July 2023 17:07 Write a comment
United Launch Alliance is now planning a first launch of its Vulcan Centaur rocket in the fourth quarter after the company completes modifications to and testing of the upper stage.
Senate defense panel leaves National Security Space Launch unsecured
Thursday, 13 July 2023 16:54 Write a comment
Congress should listen to the Space Force and reject the Senate Armed Services Committee’s changes to the U.S. Space Force's National Security Space Launch procurement plans.
Decoding the impact flash created by high-velocity impacts
Thursday, 13 July 2023 13:46 Write a comment
In an experimental study published in PNAS Nexus, researchers explore the visible impact flash that is created by high-velocity impacts.
Impacts by debris and meteoroids pose a significant threat to satellites, space probes, and hypersonic craft. Such high-velocity impacts create a brief, intense burst of light, known as an impact flash, which contains information about both the target and the impactor.
Gary Simpson, K.T. Ramesh, and colleagues explored the impact flash by shooting stainless steel spheres into an aluminum alloy plate, at a speed of three kilometers per second—about 6,700 miles per hour, or more than nine times the speed of sound.
The resulting impact flashes were photographed using ultra-high-speed cameras and high-speed spectroscopy, which measures the color and brightness of the light. Immediately after impact, a luminous disk is seen expanding around the impacting sphere. Only a few millionths of a second later, the disk takes on an almost floral shape, as fragments ejected from the impact crater form an ejecta cone, with petal-like projections at the outer edge.