Paris (ESA) Apr 06, 2023
Preparing the Juice mission to Jupiter has involved testing for all kinds of contingencies, down to the smallest of scales. This microscopic view shows surface damage to a tiny silver interconnector after being exposed to erosive atomic oxygen known to be found surrounding Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Due to launch on 13 April to begin an eight-year journey to the largest planet in the Solar S

Space Coast FL (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), Florida, on Friday, April 7th, at 12:30 a.m. EDT, with the Intelsat 40e (IS-40e), a high-throughput geostationary communications satellite built by Maxar Technologies and operated by Intelsat, while hosting NASA's TEMPO spacecraft. Intelsat 40e will be positioned at 91 de

Jiuquan, China (XNA) Apr 07, 2023
The Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, which is currently China's only site for launching manned spacecraft into orbit, is looking to tap into the burgeoning commercial market by offering more services and stronger capabilities. Located in northwest China's Gobi Desert, the Jiuquan launch center has carried out numerous space missions since its establishment in 1958. It frequented media Chin

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
Of the many different kinds of stars, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, usually slightly larger and older than our own sun, are known producers of interstellar dust. Dusty AGBs are particularly prominent producers of dust, and the light they shine happens to vary widely. For the first time, a long-period survey has found the variable intensity of dusty AGBs coincides with variations in the am

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
On Feb. 22, 1971, a sounding rocket lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia, with specialized sensors aimed at the Crab Nebula, a bright cosmic object 6,500 light-years away. In those days, before recovering physical tapes from the experiment, scientists first received scientific data on a strip chart recorder, a device that printed signals on paper. Astronomer Martin Weisskopf and his colleagu

Lisbon, Portugal (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
With data from Kepler (NASA), Gaia (ESA) and SOHO (NASA/ESA) satellites, a team1, led by Instituto de Astrofisica e Ciencias do Espaco (IA2) researcher Angela Santos, seems to have put an end to the idea that the Sun might not be a regular "sun-like" star. The results were published in Astronomy and Astrophysics3. Although it might seem odd to try to find out if the Sun is a sun-like star,

Baltimore MD (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
The explosion of a star is a dramatic event, but the remains that the star leaves behind can be even more dramatic. A new mid-infrared image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope provides one stunning example. It shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), created by a stellar explosion 340 years ago from Earth's perspective. The image displays vivid colors and intricate structures beggin

New Haven CT (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
There's an invisible monster on the loose, barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. This supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It's likely the re

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
Is there life beyond Earth - perhaps even in the Solar System? This fundamental question continues to motivate the scientific community worldwide. On 13 April 2023, a spacecraft will set off from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on a long research journey to address this and many other questions. A journey like no other - the European Space Agency's JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer (JUICE)

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 07, 2023
Technology in development today could radically change the future of air and space exploration. Nearly silent electric aircraft could ferry people and packages around cities, a sprawling radio telescope array on the far side of the Moon could reveal new secrets about the universe, and astronauts on long-duration missions could grow their own medicines to protect their health. These concept