Paris (ESA) Aug 11, 2023
Our planet is surrounded by spacecraft carrying out important work to study our changing climate, deliver global communication and navigation services and help us answer important scientific questions. But some of their orbits are getting crowded and increasingly churning with deadly, fast-moving pieces of defunct satellites and rockets that threaten our future in space. In 2002, the

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 11, 2023
Sturdy legs are needed to absorb the impact of the heaviest spacecraft to ever touch down on the Red Planet. NASA's Perseverance rover continues to rack up tubes filled with rock core samples for the planned Mars Sample Return campaign. The joint effort by NASA and ESA seeks to bring scientifically selected samples back from Mars to be studied on Earth with lab equipment far more complex than co

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 11, 2023
A new paper suggests the same conditions that created the cracks could have been favorable to the emergence of microscopic life. Scientists aren't entirely sure how life began on Earth, but one prevailing theory posits that persistent cycles of wet and dry conditions on land helped assemble the complex chemical building blocks necessary for microbial life. This is why a patchwork of well-preserv

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Aug 15, 2023
In a move emblematic of the burgeoning space industry's trajectory, Epson has announced a fresh investment into GITAI, a startup focused on creating versatile robotic solutions for space-based applications. GITAI's mission centers around supplying safe and cost-effective labor for myriad tasks in space, ranging from operations within space stations orbiting Earth to more ambitious endeavors on t

Menlo Park CA (SPX) Aug 15, 2023
LeoLabs, the leading commercial provider of Space Traffic Management (STM) and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) services, today shared their support for the European Space Agency's (ESA) successful assisted reentry of Aeolus, an Earth observation satellite, over Antarctica on 28 July 2023. This assisted reentry was considered the "first-of-its-kind" because the satellite, named Aeolus, wa

Cambridge UK (SPX) Aug 15, 2023
Researchers have found a new way to measure dark energy - the mysterious force that makes up more than two-thirds of the universe and is responsible for its accelerating expansion - in our own cosmic backyard. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, found that it may be possible to detect and measure dark energy by studying Andromeda, our galactic next-door neighbour that is on

Washington DC (SPX) Aug 15, 2023
Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers racing to find some of the earliest galaxies ever glimpsed have now confirmed that a galaxy first detected last summer is in fact among the earliest ever found. The findings are in the journal Nature. Follow-up observations since first detection of Maisie's galaxy have revealed that it is from 390 million years after the Big Bang. Altho

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Aug 11, 2023
On Aug. 12, 2023, NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft will pass between the Sun and Earth, marking the first Earth flyby of the nearly 17-year-old mission. The visit home brings a special chance for the spacecraft to collaborate with NASA missions near Earth and reveal new insights into our closest star. The twin STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) spacecraft launched on Oct. 25, 2006,

Cambridge MA (SPX) Aug 11, 2023
An extreme star system is giving new meaning to the phrase "surf's up." The star system intrigued researchers because it is the most dramatic "heartbeat star" on record. Now new models have revealed that titanic waves, generated by tides, are repeatedly breaking on one of the stars in the system-the first time this phenomenon has ever been seen on a star. Heartbeat stars are stars in close

Tucson AZ (SPX) Aug 11, 2023
Many as-yet-undiscovered interstellar objects exist throughout our Milky Way Galaxy: comets and asteroids that have been ejected from their home star systems. Some of these objects pass through our Solar System, bringing valuable information about how planetary systems form and evolve. Currently, only two such interstellar visitors have been discovered: 1I/?Oumuamua and comet 2I/Borisov. Rubin's