Berkeley CA (SPX) Nov 14, 2022
Weather and climate modelers understand pretty well how seasonal winds and ocean currents affect El Nino patterns in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, impacting weather across the United States and sometimes worldwide. But new computer simulations show that one driver of annual weather cycles in that region - in particular, a cold tongue of surface waters stretching westward along the

Washington DC (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
All component-level tests are complete on DARPA's Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program and the on-orbit demonstration mission is on schedule for launch in 2024. The RSGS goal is to enable inspection and servicing of satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), where hundreds of satellites provide communications, meteorological, national security, and other vital funct

Boston MA (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
A new study has revealed the true shape of the diffuse cloud of stars surrounding the disk of our galaxy. For decades, astronomers have thought that this cloud of stars - called the stellar halo - was largely spherical, like a beach ball. Now a new model based on modern observations shows the stellar halo is oblong and tilted, much like a football that has just been kicked. The findings -

Baltimore MD (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
A new map of the universe displays for the first time the span of the entire known cosmos with pinpoint accuracy and sweeping beauty. Created by Johns Hopkins University astronomers with data mined over two decades by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the map allows the public to experience data previously only accessible to scientists. The interactive map, which depicts the actual position and real

Jena, Germany (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
A research team from Jena (Germany) and Turin (Italy) has reconstructed the origin of an unusual gravitational wave signal. As the researchers write in the current issue of the scientific journal "Nature Astronomy", the signal GW190521 may result from the merger of two massive black holes that captured each other in their gravitational field and then collided while spinning around each other in

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
NASA and the Government of Japan on Thursday announced further contributions by Japan to Gateway, a key component of the agency's Artemis missions for long-term lunar exploration. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson participated virtually from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in an event held in Tokyo that included Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Keiko Nagao

Copenhagen, Denmark (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
When Mars was a young planet, it was bombarded by ice asteroids delivering water and organic molecules necessary for life to emerge. According to the professor behind a new study, this means that the first life in our solar system may have been on Mars. Mars is called the red planet. But once, it was actually blue and covered in water, bringing us closer to finding out if Mars had ever harboure

Washington DC (SPX) Nov 18, 2022
NASA's Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, or LOFTID, launched on Nov. 10, 2022, to demonstrate inflatable heat shield technology that could be key to landing humans on Mars. About an hour after launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, LOFTD inflated and deployed in space. After being released by the Centaur upper stage, the heat shield, or aeroshell, began

Kourou, French Guiana (ESA) Nov 18, 2022
On Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 10:47 pm local time (01:47 am (UTC) on Friday, November 25), Arianespace's first Vega C mission will lift off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, with the 30cm resolution satellites Pleiades Neo 5 and 6. This first commercial flight follows the success, July 13, of Vega C inaugural launch operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). After liftoff fro

Washington (AFP) Nov 19, 2022
On the third day after lifting off from Florida bound for the Moon, the Orion spacecraft is "exceeding performance expectations," NASA officials said on Friday. The spacecraft is to take astronauts to the Moon in the coming years - the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. This first test flight, without a crew on board, aims to ensure that the vehicl