On Jan. 13, 2021, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, experienced its first lunar transit of the year when the moon crossed its view of the sun. The transit lasted about 30 minutes, between 12:56 and 1:25 a.m. ET. During this time, the moon happened to cover two of the spacecraft's fine-guidance sensors, causing its view of the sun to jitter slightly. SDO recovered a steady view shortly after the transit.

SDO sees lunar transits regularly. Due to its inclined circular orbit 23,000 miles above Earth, the moon passes between SDO and the sun between two and five times each year.

SDO captured these images in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. This kind of light is invisible to human eyes, and colorized here in red.

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HELSINKI — China’s space contractor has announced progress on rocket engines designed for major space missions, including a new engine for future lunar missions.

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A replay of our start-of-year press conference with ESA Director General Jan Wörner, future Director General Josef Aschbacher and other ESA Directors, held online on Thursday, 14 January 2021.

They looked ahead at Europe's space activities in 2021 and answered questions from media. Highlights in 2021 include two ESA astronauts flying to the International Space Station, the new James Webb Space Telescope being launched from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and the launch of NASA’s first Artemis mission, in a programme that will take humans to the Moon powered by ESA’s European Service Module.

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WASHINGTON — OneWeb says it’s drastically reducing the size of a proposed next-generation satellite constellation originally envisioned to have nearly 48,000 satellites.

In a Jan. 12 filing with the Federal Communications Commission, OneWeb sought permission to amend an application filed in May requesting to launch 47,844 satellites for its “Phase Two” constellation.

Have you heard of polyurethanes? As you read this, you’re undoubtedly close to some, or maybe sitting on them: this versatile class of chemicals is used for everything from padding your couch to insulating your windows, packaging food to carpet underlay, electronics casings to skateboard wheels. They also have vital uses in space, triggering a new ESA Clean Space project aiming to manufacture them in a greener way.

Amsterdam, Netherlands (SPX) Jan 13, 2021
An international team led by Dutch astronomers has, after years of searching and defying the boundaries of a telescope, for the first time directly captured polarized light from an exoplanet. They can deduct from the light that a disk of dust and gas is orbiting around the exoplanet in which moons are possibly forming. The researchers will soon publish their findings in the journal Astronomy and

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 12, 2021
Linear accelerators, LINACs for short, are devices that accelerate electrons or other sub-atomic particles along a straight line to generate a beam of high energy. LINACs have a variety of commercial uses such as generating X-rays for cargo inspection, medical diagnostics, food sterilization, and even enabling precise external radiation treatments to destroy cancer cells without damaging surroun

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 11, 2021
The U.S. departments of Defense and Commerce will jointly seek public input on development of 5G communication networks, they announced on Monday. 5G, or fifth generation telecommunications standard for broadband cellular networks, offers higher download speeds and has been of particular interest to the U.S. military prior to its civilian rollout in 2019. The Defense Department r