Los Alamos NM (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
A long-time question in astrophysics appears to finally be answered, thanks to a collection of large, high-tech water tanks on a mountainside in Mexico. The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) data shows that the highest-energy cosmic rays come not from supernovae, but from star clusters. "The origin of the highest-energy cosmic rays in the galaxy has been an open question in astrophysics

Riga, Latvia (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
Mobile innovator LMT and software company Dimetor have partnered to explore the integration of drones into VLL (very low level) airspace. This builds on earlier collaboration where the two companies succeeded in validating the viability of BVLOS drone flights using mobile networks. The current collaboration entails investigative research into the theoretical and practical possibilities of using

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has chosen three companies to participate in a new partnership to test and evaluate satellite servicing technologies. Altius Space Machines of Broomfield, Colorado, Honeybee Robotics of Brooklyn, New York, and Orbit Fab of San Francisco will provide cooperative robotic grapple fixtures and data to be studied by NASA's Exploration a

Moscow, Russia (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
Researchers from Skoltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have analyzed several dozen options to pick the best one in terms of performance and costs for the 'last mile' of a future mission to the Moon - actually delivering astronauts to the lunar surface and back up to the safety of the orbiting lunar station. The paper was published in the journal Acta Astronautica. Ever sin

Chicago IL (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
An atmosphere is what makes life on Earth's surface possible, regulating our climate and sheltering us from damaging cosmic rays. But although telescopes have counted a growing number of rocky planets, scientists had thought most of their atmospheres long lost. However, a new study by University of Chicago and Stanford University researchers suggests a mechanism whereby these planets could

Bethesda MD (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
About a hundred years ago, geologists first noticed that some volcanic rocks were magnetized opposite to the direction of the local Earth's magnetic field. Thus, the concept of magnetic field reversal was born. Estimates regarding the timing of magnetic field reversals were made about that same time and scientists initially thought that this phenomenon had occurred by the early Pleistocene age.

Beijing (XNA) Mar 16, 2021
China has completed feasibility studies of the fourth phase of its lunar exploration program and is expected to build an international lunar research station on the moon's south pole in the future, said Wu Weiren, the chief designer of China's lunar exploration program. In an interview with China Space News, Wu said that three missions are planned for the fourth phase of the lunar explorat

Washington DC (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
In order to withstand the rigors of space on deep-space missions, food grown outside of Earth needs a little extra help from bacteria. Now, a recent discovery aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has researchers may help create the 'fuel' to help plants withstand such stressful situations. Publishing their findings to Frontiers in Microbiology, researchers working with NASA describ

Mainz, Germany (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
The NANOGrav Collaboration recently captured the first signs of very low-frequency gravitational waves. Prof. Pedro Schwaller and Wolfram Ratzinger analyzed the data and, in particular, considered the possibility of whether this may point towards new physics beyond the Standard Model. In an article published in the journal SciPost Physics, they report that the signal is consistent with both a ph

Bremen, Germany (SPX) Mar 16, 2021
Airbus has been selected by the European Commission to study spacecraft manufacturing in space through the Horizon 2020 Programme. The PERIOD (PERASPERA In-Orbit Demonstration) project focuses on satellite assembly and manufacturing in orbit. This A/B1 phase study contract, worth 3 million euro, will last two years, with the objective to continue with a demonstrator in orbit. The "orbital