
Copernical Team
Science Marches on: International Space Station update

The first quarter of 2021 flew by almost as fast as the International Space Station itself. Get up to speed with some March highlights from our orbital outpost as an astronaut prepares to be launched into space on a Dragon.
Astronauts need a fridge

Fast-spinning black holes narrow the search for dark matter particles

New Tactical ISR Satellites Provide Global, Persistent Support For Warfighters

Earth from Space: Space Coast, Florida

On 22 April 2021, on Earth Day, Thomas Pesquet is planned to return to the International Space Station for his second mission, Alpha. Ahead of his launch, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Cape Canaveral, USA, in a region known as the Space Coast.
La Soufrière volcano: before-and-after

NASA spacecraft leaves mess after grabbing asteroid samples

SpaceX, NASA give 'go' for astronaut launch, 3rd for Dragon

Peering through the clouds of Earth's 'Evil Twin' surprises NRL sky watchers

Galileo sunspot sketches versus modern 'deep learning' AI

It's a fascinating thought to consider.
What exactly did the Sun look like, centuries ago? What would we see, if astronomers back in the time of Kepler and Galileo had modern technology monitoring the Sun across the electromagnetic spectrum, available to them?
Thanks to modern artificial intelligence, there may be a way to actually 'see' just what state the Sun was in, way back in those days of yore. A recent study, titled "Generation of Modern Satellite Data from Galileo Sunspot Drawings in 1612 by Deep Learning" out February 2021 in the Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society used an innovative set of deductions to compare sketches of sunspots with modern views from ground and space-based observations. The study was led by Harim Lee from Kyung Hee University in the Republic of South Korea.
Galileo and the Sun
Sunspot records represent one of the longest sets of astronomical data available, going all the way back to Chinese observations in 1128 A.D.