Sydney, Australia (SPX) Mar 19, 2025
An international collaboration led in part by Swinburne University of Technology has uncovered a massive spiral disk galaxy from the early universe, providing new insights into galactic formation. The discovery, made serendipitously through observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), revealed a disk galaxy from a time just two billion years after the Big Bang - roughly eleven

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 19, 2025
Observing ultraviolet (UV) light in space opens a window to some of the universe's most energetic phenomena. Yet, the efficient capture of UV photons remains a challenge due to their limited interaction with conventional instrument materials. To address this, scientists are developing thin film coatings engineered at the atomic level to enhance UV light detection capabilities. At NASA's Je

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 19, 2025
NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently convened a diverse group of stakeholders from government, industry, and the international space community to focus on the technologies needed for future resource exploration, both on Earth and in space. The event, held in February at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, centered on tools and methods for locating and utili

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 19, 2025
A comprehensive review in *Meteoritics and Planetary Science* reveals how astronomers have traced the source of various meteorite types to specific, previously unknown regions within the asteroid belt. Through a decade of meticulous observations and analysis, researchers have begun to chart the first geologic map of the asteroid belt's impact zones. "This has been a decade-long detective s

Washington (AFP) Mar 18, 2025
A private US lander has captured eerie high-definition images of a lunar sunset, which NASA hopes will help unravel the mystery of a strange haze first observed on the Moon in the 1960s. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, which published the pictures on Tuesday, became the first private company to land a robotic spacecraft upright on the Moon earlier this month. Its Blue Ghost lander - rou

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 18, 2025
Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has entered into a contract with Telespazio, itself a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%), to handle the design and development of the orbital segment for the European Space Agency's Moonlight Lunar Communications and Navigation Services (LCNS) initiative. Spearheaded by ESA and led by Telespazi

Washington (AFP) Mar 19, 2025
Home at last: After an unexpected nine-month stay in space, a pair of NASA astronauts finally returned to Earth on Tuesday, concluding a mission that captured global attention and became a political flashpoint. A SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship carrying Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams - alongside fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov - streaked through the atmosp

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 18, 2025
Sidus Space has confirmed the successful launch and deployment of its LizzieSat-3 satellite into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), reinforcing the company's growing multi-satellite network. This latest satellite was launched on March 14th aboard SpaceX's Transporter-13 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. LizzieSat-3 now joins its predecessors, LizzieSat-1 and LizzieSat-2, whic

Paris (AFP) Mar 18, 2025
Elon Musk's SpaceX subsidiary Starlink is the most widely-known firm offering satellite communications, but the sector is the scene of hot competition between several groups. Depending on their technology, different players can offer widely varying capacity and applications for connectivity via space. From their orbits around the Earth, satellites serve as "relays between one point on th

The European Space Agency is releasing the first catalogue of astronomical data from the Euclid space telescope, including three new enormous image mosaics with zoom-ins. Follow the reveal live on Wednesday 19 March at 11:00 BST / 12:00 CET.