College Park MD (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
University of Maryland researchers created the first high-resolution image of an expanding bubble of hot plasma and ionized gas where stars are born. Previous low-resolution images did not clearly show the bubble or reveal how it expanded into the surrounding gas. The researchers used data collected by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope to analyze one of

Charlottesville Va (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Using data for more than 500 young stars observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), scientists have uncovered a direct link between protoplanetary disk structures - the planet-forming disks that surround stars - and planet demographics. The survey proves that higher mass stars are more likely to be surrounded by disks with "gaps" in them and that these gaps dire

Baltimore MD (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Quasars are very bright, distant and active supermassive black holes that are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. Typically located at the centers of galaxies, they feed on infalling matter and unleash fantastic torrents of radiation. Among the brightest objects in the universe, a quasar's light outshines that of all the stars in its host galaxy combined, and its jets and winds sh

Orlando FL (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
A new space tourism company began to sell tickets Wednesday for six-hour balloon rides to the stratosphere starting in 2024. The price of a seat: $125,000. The company, Florida-based Space Perspective, plans up to 25 flights in the first year into what is the second major layer of the Earth's atmosphere and extends to about 31 miles, or more than 163,000 feet, above the planet's surface.

Moscow (Sputnikl) Jun 24, 2021
The main goal is to solve the issue of astronauts having to get rid of tonnes of clothes every year, which is then placed in the trash and burned in the atmosphere. Tide is now collaborating with NASA to develop a laundry detergent tailor-made for astronauts to clean their dirty clothes while aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This comes as Tide's parent company, Procter and Gamble (P

Beijing (XNA) Jun 24, 2021
Storing basic life support materials like water, food and oxygen aboard a space station can be challenging - so much so that some are generated aboard rather than delivered to space. Chinese scientists have devised a system to recycle water from the urine, breath and sweat produced by astronauts in space, which could save up to 100 million yuan (about 15.5 million U.S. dollars) over a peri

Burlington VT (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Benchmark Space Systems, a leading provider of in-space mobility products and services, has announced a breakthrough in-space mobility service that virtually eliminates upfront propulsion equipment costs and boosts on-orbit, servicing, assembly and manufacturing (OSAM) mission revenues by allowing satellite operators and service providers to pay as they go for in-space transport. SCOUT, an

Ithaca NY (SPX) Jun 24, 2021
Scientists at Cornell University and the American Museum of Natural History have identified 2,034 nearby star-systems - within the small cosmic distance of 326 light-years - that could find Earth merely by watching our pale blue dot cross our sun. That's 1,715 star-systems that could have spotted Earth since human civilization blossomed about 5,000 years ago, and 319 more star-systems that

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 23, 2021
NASA needs crewed lunar landings every year for "a dozen years," the agency's administrator, Bill Nelson, said in a House of Representatives committee hearing Wednesday. Nelson, who became administrator May 3, said Congress hasn't appropriated enough money for the nation's coming lunar aspirations. "We want to have these sustained landings over a dozen years, and that's gonna cos