Paris, France (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
The elusive solar corona, a faint, ultra-hot layer of the Sun, has intrigued scientists for centuries. This region, responsible for solar winds and storms, is usually obscured by the Sun's intense light. While natural solar eclipses or specially designed instruments have provided glimpses, ESA's Proba-3 mission is poised to offer unprecedented access through advanced technology. Proba-3, c

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
NASA has awarded a $20.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for the development of Suprathermal Ion Sensors as part of NOAA's Space Weather Next Program. These sensors will be critical for the Lagrange 1 Series project, providing real-time data to improve space weather forecasting. The contract, set to co

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
While NASA's NEOWISE telescope ended its journey through space on Nov. 1, 2024, the team at IPAC, a science center at Caltech, was working on one further gift from the prolific mission. The final data release from NEOWISE was released to the astronomy community just two weeks later, on Nov. 14, encompassing over 26 million images and nearly 200 billion sources detected by the telescope.

Pasadena CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
A Neptune-sized planet, TOI-3261 b, makes a scorchingly close orbit around its host star. Only the fourth object of its kind ever found, the planet could reveal clues as to how planets such as these form. An international team of scientists used the NASA space telescope, TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), to discover the exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system), then ma

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
A new study led by Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute has revealed how pulsar signals - emissions from the spinning remnants of massive stars - are distorted as they traverse the interstellar medium (ISM). The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, were developed through contributions from undergraduate researchers in Penn State's Pulsar Search Collaboratory, a student program origina

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) is partnering with Starsite Pty Ltd to build and operate a 20-meter antenna at a new site in Western Australia. Starsite, the Australian landowner, will manage and maintain the installation, which is designed to support key lunar missions. Starsite was chosen to host the facility based on its expertise and commitment to operational excellence. The collab

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
Slingshot Aerospace, a leader in AI-driven satellite tracking and space coordination technologies, has been awarded a $13.3 million contract by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Space Commerce (OSC). This contract focuses on developing the Presentation Layer for the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), the U.S. government's next-generation space safety pl

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Nov 26, 2024
The Shijian-19 satellite, China's first reusable and returnable satellite, has completed its mission and returned to Earth, carrying a variety of experimental payloads. Among these was the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's (PolyU) in-orbit material experiment testbed, a milestone as Hong Kong's first reusable experimental payload to return from space. The China National Space Administration for

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Nov 26, 2024
In a major advancement for strong field physics, researchers from the Institute for Basic Science's Center for Relativistic Laser Science (CoReLS) in Korea have successfully demonstrated nonlinear Compton scattering (NCS) using a groundbreaking all-optical setup. This achievement, recently published in 'Nature Photonics', uses the 4-petawatt laser at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (

ESA’s eclipse-making precise formation-flying mission is nearly ready for liftoff! Proba-3 is scheduled for launch on a PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Wednesday, 4 December, at 11:38 CET (10:38 GMT, 16:08 local time).