Copernical Team
NASA opens second phase of $5 Million Lunar Power Prize Competition
Under Artemis, NASA plans to return to the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. This will require lunar surface systems that can deliver continuous, reliable power to support mining and construction, research activities, and human habitation.
The newest phase of NASA's Watts on the Moon Challenge offers up to $4.5 million in prizes to de Clean driving technology enables cleaner rocket fuel
A chemical used in electric vehicle batteries could also give us carbon-free fuel for space flight, according to new UC Riverside research.
In addition to emission reductions, this chemical also has several advantages over other types of rocket fuels: higher energy, lower costs, and no requirement for frozen storage.
The chemical, ammonia borane, is currently used for storing the hyd Rocket Lab officially opens third launch pad, Next launch within a week
Rocket Lab USA, Inc (Nasdaq: RKLB) has announced the completion of its second orbital launch pad at Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand - the Company's third dedicated pad for its Electron rocket - and confirmed the new pad's first mission will be a dedicated commercial launch scheduled to lift-off within a week's time.
Pad B is based within Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, the world's first priva Ukraine crisis challenges International Space Station cooperation
The crisis over Russia's Ukrainian aggression presents NASA and other space agencies with the most serious diplomatic strain in the 22-year history of the International Space Station partnership, experts said.
Russia is a major partner with the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada in the space station's maintenance and operation.
Russia provides critical cargo and crew transport, Tiny probes could sail to outer planets with the help of low-power lasers
Space travel can be agonizingly slow: For example, the New Horizons probe took almost 10 years to reach Pluto. Traveling to Proxima Centauri b, the closest habitable planet to Earth, would require thousands of years with even the biggest rockets. Now, researchers calculate in ACS' Nano Letters that low-power lasers on Earth could launch and maneuver small probes equipped with silicon or boron nitride sails, propelling them to much faster speeds than rocket engines.
Caution! Martian wind at work
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows part of possibly the largest single source of dust on Mars: a wind-sculpted feature known as the Medusae Fossae Formation, or MFF.
Webb’s workhorse: NIRSpec
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The NIRSpec instrument is the workhorse near-infrared spectrograph on board the James Webb Space Telescope and is provided by ESA.
NIRSpec will allow scientists to study objects embedded in shrouds of gas and dust, to find out more about how galaxies formed and evolved, and to characterise the atmospheres of exoplanet to determine if water is present.
The primary goal of NIRSpec is to enable large spectroscopic surveys of astronomical objects like stars or distant galaxies. This is made possible by its powerful multi-object spectroscopy mode, which will make use of use of roughly a quarter of a
What ingredients went into the galactic blender to create the Milky Way
Our galaxy is a giant 'smoothie' of blended stars and gas but a new study tells us where the components came from. In its early days, the Milky Way was like a giant smoothie, as if galaxies consisting of billions of stars, and an enormous amount of gas had been thrown together into a gigantic blender. But a new study picks apart this mixture by analysing individual stars to identify which origin Galaxy collision creates 'space triangle' in new Hubble image
A spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies fueled the unusual triangular-shaped star-birthing frenzy, as captured in a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 143. The pair contains the glittery, distorted, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2445 at right, along with its less flashy companion, NGC 2444 at left.
Astronomers s 'Tatooine-like' exoplanet spotted by ground-based telescope
A rare exoplanet which orbits around two stars at once has been detected using a ground-based telescope by a team led by the University of Birmingham.
The planet, called Kepler-16b, has so far only been seen using the Kepler space telescope. It orbits around two stars, with the two orbits also orbiting one another, forming a binary star system. Kepler-16b is located some 245 light years fr 
