Copernical Team
Finnish forestry firm gets approval to launch tiny satellite made of plywood
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A Finnish company has received approval by the European Space Agency to launch a small cubesat made of wood later this year. The novel design is intended to reduce space debris, but its first mission will simply be to test what happens to wood in the cold vacuum of space.
It could become the first wooden object in orbit - it's Woodsat, a test satellite made out of birch-plywood. If success NASA, European Space Agency join forces on climate change
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NASA and the European Space Agency joined forces Tuesday in the battle against climate change, a move they said paves the way to a global response to the problem.
"To ensure that data from Earth-observing satellites are used to their best advantage, further science and, ultimately, bring the most benefit to humankind, ESA and NASA have formed a strategic partnership for Earth science and climate change," ESA said in a statement.
The partnership was formalised on Tuesday with a statement of intent signed by ESA's Director General Josef Aschbacher and NASA's Administrator Bill Nelson.
This aims "to pave the way to leading a global response to climate change, through the monitoring of the Earth and its environment with their combined efforts in Earth science observations, research and applications," the statement said.
The US and European space agencies have already worked together on environmental issues, notably on the Copernicus Sentinel-6 programme in which satellites about the size and shape of a large minivan measure sea level rise, tracking changes threatening to disrupt tens of millions of lives within a generation.
Video: Making Juice's thermal vacuum test happen
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Video: making Juice's thermal vacuum test happen
Feel the force
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Feel the force NASA Space Lasers Map Meltwater Lakes in Antarctica With Striking Precision
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From above, the Antarctic Ice Sheet might look like a calm, perpetual ice blanket that has covered Antarctica for millions of years. But the ice sheet can be thousands of meters deep at its thickest, and it hides hundreds of meltwater lakes where its base meets the continent's bedrock. Deep below the surface, some of these lakes fill and drain continuously through a system of waterways that even Haziness of exoplanet atmospheres depends on properties of aerosol particles
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Many exoplanets have opaque atmospheres, obscured by clouds or hazes that make it hard for astronomers to characterize their chemical compositions. A new study shows that haze particles produced under different conditions have a wide range of properties that can determine how clear or hazy a planet's atmosphere is likely to be.
Photochemical reactions in the atmospheres of temperate exopla TESS discovers stellar siblings host 'teenage' exoplanets
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Thanks to data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international collaboration of astronomers has identified four exoplanets, worlds beyond our solar system, orbiting a pair of related young stars called TOI 2076 and TOI 1807.
These worlds may provide scientists with a glimpse of a little-understood stage of planetary evolution.
"The planets in both systems a China kicks off lunar sample study programs
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China on Monday delivered about 17 grams of lunar samples brought back by the Chang'e-5 probe to 13 institutions, which had applied for research programs to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the delivery, Liu Jizhong, director of the center, said that this is the first batch of lunar samples delivered t China declares Chang'e-4 mission complete success
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China announced Friday that the Chang'e-4 mission, which realized the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon, was a complete success.
With the assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2) and the lander of the Chang'e-4 probe took photos of each other.
The scientific instruments aboard the probe worked well, and the images t Danish student solves how the Universe is reflected near black holes
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In the vicinity of black holes, space is so warped that even light rays may curve around them several times. This phenomenon may enable us to see multiple versions of the same thing. While this has been known for decades, only now do we have an exact, mathematical expression, thanks to Albert Sneppen, student at the Niels Bohr Institute. The result, which even is more useful in realistic black h 
