Washington DC (SPX) Jan 06, 2021
Astronomers refer to observations as "deep" when they are taken with very long exposure times. Just as with photography, this gathers more light, revealing distant, fainter objects. Deeper exposures let astronomers look deeper into the Universe - hence the name. This particular deep image was taken with a 70-minute exposure with the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Obse

Providence RI (SPX) Jan 05, 2021
Sea ice is a critical indicator of changes in the Earth's climate. A new discovery by Brown University researchers could provide scientists a new way to reconstruct sea ice abundance and distribution information from the ancient past, which could aid in understanding human-induced climate change happening now. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers show that an orga

WASHINGTON — NASA plans to complete the Green Run test campaign for the Space Launch System core stage with a hotfire test scheduled for mid-January.

NASA announced Jan. 5 that it has scheduled the static-fire test, where the core stage’s four RS-25 engines are fired for a full-duration burn of 493 seconds, for no earlier than Jan.

WASHINGTON — China is developing satellites with robotic arms that could be deployed as space weapons. To prepare for the possibility that U.S. satellites might be targeted, the Space Force needs tools to identify whether a satellite is hostile or benign, a senior official said Jan.

WASHINGTON — Two satellites from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that were part of an upcoming SpaceX rideshare mission have been damaged at the payload processing facility, the agency confirmed Jan. 6.

Image: The Sun in 2020

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 07, 2021
On 17 August 2017, an alert went out roughly 40 minutes after the LIGO observatory detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. This alert sent telescopes worldwide slewing rapidly in an all-hands-on-deck effort to image the fireworks show accompanying the merger. But what if that alert had gone out before the collision? b>When Stars Collide br> /b> When neu

Long Beach CA (SPX) Jan 07, 2021
Rocket Lab, the global leader in dedicated small satellite launch, has announced its first Electron launch of the new year will be a dedicated mission for European space technology company OHB Group. This dedicated mission, named 'Another One Leaves the Crust,' is scheduled for lift-off during a 10-day launch window opening on January 16th NZT/UTC. Encapsulated inside Electron's fairing wi

London, UK (SPX) Jan 07, 2021
Through the UK Space Agency, the government is giving a cash injection to 5 projects specifically designed to bring together UK business expertise with universities to help build space solutions to global problems, on UK soil. One of the projects, involving the University of Southampton, will use artificial intelligence to automatically detect buried archaeological remains on satellite ima

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 6, 2021
NASA is setting up a high-tech simulator, made by Lockheed Martin, to teach astronauts how to operate the Orion capsule during planned moon missions. Weak funding from Congress has cast doubt over the schedule for such lunar missions, but NASA is moving forward with preparations, officials have said. Lockheed delivered the Orion simulator to Johnson Space Center in mid-December,