Copernical Team
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter gets an upgrade to capture new perspectives of the moon
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Eleven years into its mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is starting to show its age, but a recent software update promises to give the spacecraft a new lease on life. As NASA's eye in the sky over the moon, the LRO has been responsible for some of the best Lunar observations since the days of Apollo. This new upgrade will allow that legacy to continue.
Launched in June 2009, the LRO quickly succeeded in mapping over 98% of the moon's surface at a resolution of 100 meters per pixel. The orbiter is also famous for taking incredible high-resolution images of the Apollo landing sites, in which landers, rovers, tire tracks and astronaut footprints are clearly visible.
In 2016, the LRO found evidence that the moon is geologically active as a result of tidal forces from the Earth, and also because the moon is shrinking as its core cools.
Comet or asteroid: What killed the dinosaurs and where did it come from?
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It forever changed history when it crashed into Earth about 66 million years ago.
The Chicxulub impactor, as it's known, left behind a crater off the coast of Mexico that spans 93 miles and runs 12 miles deep. Its devastating impact brought the reign of the dinosaurs to an abrupt and calamitous end by triggering their sudden mass extinction, along with the end of almost three-quarters of the plant and animal species living on Earth.
The enduring puzzle: Where did the asteroid or comet originate, and how did it come to strike Earth? Now, a pair of researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian believe they have the answer.
In a study published today in Nature's Scientific Reports, Harvard University astrophysics undergraduate student Amir Siraj and astronomer Avi Loeb put forth a new theory that could explain the origin and journey of this catastrophic object.
SpaceX plans to boost Starlink network with launch
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SpaceX plans to launch 60 more of its Starlink communications satellites from Florida on Sunday night as the company expands sales of the broadband internet service those satellites provide.
Liftoff on a Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for 11:20 p.m. EST, but the U.S. Space Force forecasts a 60% chance that storm clouds or a threat of lightning that could cause a postponement.
Elon Proba-V's plus one
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This satellite mockup, seen during antenna testing, shows the shape of ESA's new Proba-V Companion CubeSat, which is due for launch at the end of this year.
The mission is a 12-unit 'CubeSat' - a small, low-cost satellite built up from standardised 10-cm boxes. It will fly a cut-down version of the vegetation-monitoring instrument aboard the Earth-observing Proba-V to perform experimental Chinese tracking vessel sets sail for monitoring missions in Indian Ocean
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China's tracking vessel Yuanwang-6 on Wednesday departed from a port in east China's Jiangsu Province for maritime spacecraft monitoring missions in the Indian Ocean.
The Yuanwang fleet will continue to carry out intensive and challenging maritime missions this year, and Yuanwang-6 alone will operate at sea for over 200 days, according to sources with the country's satellite maritime track Vaporised crusts of Earth-like planets found in dying stars
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Remnants of planets with Earth-like crusts have been discovered in the atmospheres of four nearby white dwarf stars by University of Warwick astronomers, offering a glimpse of the planets that may have once orbited them up to billions of years ago.
These crusts are from the outer layers of rocky planets similar to Earth and Mars and could give astronomers greater insights into the chemistr Hubble uncovers concentration of small black holes
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Globular clusters are extremely dense stellar systems, in which stars are packed closely together. They are also typically very old - the globular cluster that is the focus of this study, NGC 6397, is almost as old as the Universe itself. It resides 7800 light-years away, making it one of the closest globular clusters to Earth. Because of its very dense nucleus, it is known as a core-collapsed c Scientists develop new, faster method for seeking out dark matter
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For nearly a century, scientists have worked to unravel the mystery of dark matter - an elusive substance that spreads through the universe and likely makes up much of its mass, but has so far proven impossible to detect in experiments. Now, a team of researchers have used an innovative technique called "quantum squeezing" to dramatically speed up the search for one candidate for dark matter in Lasers reveal the secret interior of rocky exoplanets
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Advances in astronomical observations have resulted in the discovery of an extraordinary number of extrasolar planets, some of which are believed to have a rocky composition similar to Earth. Learning more about their interior structure could provide important clues about their potential habitability.
Led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a team of researchers aims to unloc A new way of forming planets
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In the last 25 years, scientists have discovered over 4000 planets beyond the borders of our solar system. From relatively small rock and water worlds to blisteringly hot gas giants, the planets display a remarkable variety. This variety is not unexpected. The sophisticated computer models, with which scientists study the formation of planets, also spawn very different planets. What the models h