Copernical Team
New satellite series adds capabilities to China's data relay capacity
China launched a Tianlian II series satellite early on Wednesday morning to form a global-covering network of the country's second-generation relay satellites. A Long March 3B carrier rocket blasted off at 12:30 am at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China's Sichuan province and then placed the Tianlian II-03 satellite into a geostationary orbit, according to China Aeros
Multi-domain operations: Helping militaries make better decisions faster
For years, Paul Meyer's job in the U.S. Air Force was to suppress enemy air defenses. To do that, he had to know where they were and what they were doing. And to do that, he and the pilot of his F-4 Phantom II had to get close enough to show up on their radars. "My job was to play chicken - to put myself in that environment where I have to fire my missile before he fires his," said Meyer,
First image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals thousands of galaxies in stunning detail
Billions of years ago, long before a swirling cloud of gas and dust coalesced to form the sun, light left the earliest stars and began a long journey through space.
The light has been traveling ever since, covering trillions upon trillions of miles. It hurtled by galaxies and their nascent stars, some of which were accompanied by planets. And on one of these, a species evolved with the ability not only to question what might be out there, but to build tools to see what its own eyes could not.
On Monday, the world got its first glimpse of that ancient light courtesy of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the most sophisticated and ambitious deep-space viewing tool yet assembled.
It's a snapshot of deep space, the light from innumerable galaxies swirling around a central point like the light thrown off from a disco ball. Flanked by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson unveiled the image at a White House news conference.
China launches two new satellites
China on Saturday launched a Long March-2C carrier rocket to place two satellites in space. The pair of satellites, Siwei 03 and 04, were lifted at 6:57 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in the northern province of Shanxi and soon entered the preset orbit. They will provide commercial remote sensing services for sectors such as land resources investigation,
NASA and Houston's Ion Partner to Create Opportunities for Startup Community
The Ion, Houston's innovation hub, has announced a new collaboration with NASA's Johnson Space Center. NASA and the Ion are establishing a technology transfer center at the Ion, empowering the Houston-Galveston region's aerospace innovation ecosystem by giving local entrepreneurs and startups opportunities to share ideas and intellectual property with NASA. The collaboration between NASA a
Beyond the Clouds: Finding Galaxies Behind Galaxies
There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe, each containing billions of stars, and found in every part of the sky. But in some directions, nearby galaxies block the view of the more distant cosmos. Now a team from the University of Keele have created the largest ever map of previously hidden galaxies. Jessica Craig is presenting their work this week at the National Astronom
Astrophysicists prove neutrinos originate from Blazars
Cosmic rays, charged particles that travel up to nearly the speed of light from deep outer space, constantly bombard Earth. For more than a century, astrophysicists have tried to determine the origin of those extremely energetic particles, which are up to a million times more energetic than anything achieved by the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider near
Neutrino Factories in Deep Outer Space
The Earth's atmosphere is continuously bombarded by cosmic rays. These consist of electrically charged particles of energies up to 1020 electron volts. That is a million times more than the energy achieved in the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. The extremely energetic particles come from deep outer space, they have travelled billions of li
Cyborg collaboration finds 40,000 ring galaxies
Human and machine intelligence worked together to find 40,000 ring galaxies, scientists at the National Astronomy Meeting will announce this week. Dr Mike Walmsley of the University of Manchester and the Galaxy Zoo collaboration will present the new work, describing how this "cyborg" approach measured the shapes of millions of galaxies. Galaxies live a chaotic life. Collisions with other g
Rocking shadows in protoplanetary discs
Astronomers from the University of Warwick reveal a new phenomenon dubbed the "rocking shadow" effect that describes how discs in forming planetary systems are oriented, and how they move around their host star. The effect also gives clues as to how they might evolve with time. Dr Rebecca Nealon presented the new work this week at the 2022 National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Warwick.