Melbourne FL (SPX) Oct 01, 2021
A rogue planet is an interstellar object of planetary mass without a host planetary system. As they freely roam around space, could they be fertile nurseries for life? A Florida Tech scientist believes it's possible based on extensive research he has undertaken over the past several years. In research highlighted this summer in Discover Magazine, university astrobiologist Manasvi Lin

Cambridge UK (SPX) Oct 01, 2021
Space. The final frontier, the first step in a journey just beginning, or a horrifying void matched only by your deep fear of the ocean? Whatever your feelings on space, technology has been steadily pushing forwards to take exploration further, faster, and foodier than ever before. Space for seconds? Many people are familiar with the concept of freeze-dried food for astronauts, from

ESA and Mattel have released a Samantha Cristoforetti Barbie doll to coincide with World Space Week 2021 and its theme of ‘Women in Space’, to help encourage girls to become the next generation of astronauts, engineers and space scientists.

Beijing, China (SPX) Oct 04, 2021
Astronomers, from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of CAS and Nanjing University, revealed a wobbly and flared Milky Way disk based on LAMOST-Gaia data, which updates our understanding about the disk. The Milky Way is a typical disk galaxy. In the classical view of the Milky Way, the disk is symmetric and flat on t

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 04, 2021
The 2020 hurricane season was one of the most active on record, and 2021's is shaping up to be as well, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Each year, large-scale weather events like hurricanes and blizzards cause millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses. To help prevent unnecessary losses, the National Weather Service mission of NOAA makes obser

Paris, France (SPX) Oct 04, 2021
Space based network infrastructure will very soon complement the 5G terrestrial mobile networks that are currently being deployed. This will lead to satellite communications becoming an integrated and indispensable part of the global telecommunications ecosystem with the potential to grow existing market segments such as backhauling and to expand into new areas such as hybrid networks and the In

Paris (AFP) Oct 2, 2021
The European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft has sent back its first images of Mercury, the nearest planet to the Sun, the European Space Agency said Saturday. The images were obtained almost three years after the unmanned mission vessel was launched aboard an Ariane 5 Rocket. The cameras attached the BepiColombo provided black-and-white images, the ESA said in a statement. But as th

Chicago IL (SPX) Oct 04, 2021
It's not uncommon for scientists to bring interesting objects thousands of miles to Argonne National Laboratory for study. But it's fair to say that the latest of these to land at the laboratory came from much, much farther away. A team of scientists with Argonne and the University of Chicago is among the few groups around the world chosen to study tiny fragments of an asteroid. These dust

Tucson AZ (SPX) Oct 04, 2021
Little is known about the population of metal-rich Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), their number, origin, and relationship with meteorites found on Earth. A new paper by Planetary Science Institute Associate Research Scientist Juan Sanchez explains how near-infrared spectroscopic data of two NEAs reveals new information about the composition and physical properties of these bodies. "We find th

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 1, 2021
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity is on its own without NASA's guidance for two weeks as the sun interferes with communications to the Red Planet. Sometime around Oct. 14, NASA plans to check in with the helicopter and the Mars rover Perseverance. Previous rovers have endured so-called solar conjunction communication dropouts, but never has a tiny aircraft sat alone on the planet for so lon