Celebrated annually on 2 February, World Wetlands Day aims to raise global awareness about the importance of wetlands for our planet. This year’s theme shines a light on wetlands as a source of freshwater and encourages actions to restore them. From their vantage point of 800 km high, Earth-observing satellites provide data and imagery on wetlands that can be used to monitor and manage these precious resources sustainably.

Bethesda MD (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
A common misconception about astronauts orbiting the earth is that they are in a gravity-free environment. Unfortunately, according to Newtonian physics, gravity is everywhere present in the universe. Generally, the phenomenon of weightlessness is associated with the term, "zero-G" which would apply to situations in which there is an absence of forces on a body. Weight as we know it is the

Herndon VA (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
HawkEye 360 Inc., the first commercial company to use formation-flying satellites to create a new class of radio frequency (RF) data and data analytics, has announced that Cluster 2 - the company's second cluster of satellites - has successfully been deployed into orbit. After launching aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 this Sunday morning, the trio of satellites was dispensed from Spaceflight In

Boston MA (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
On Nov. 26, seven fishermen aboard a small fishing boat off the coast of Maharashtra in western India were struck with panic when their vessel was damaged and began to sink. The panic was warranted: The boat was too far from shore to radio for help. Tens of thousands of fishermen find themselves in a similar situation around the world every year. Globally, the vast majority of small, deep-

Ottawa, Canada (SPX) Feb 01, 2021
Kongsberg Geospatial, developer of the TerraLens Geospatial SDK, uAvionix, creators of the PingStation Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) transponder, and Aireon, developers of a space-based ADS-B network announced that they will be demonstrating a horizonless air picture to help improve drone operations safety in an upcoming online seminar hosted by the Association for Unmanned

Boston MA (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
The Milky Way is surrounded by dozens of dwarf galaxies that are thought to be relics of the very first galaxies in the universe. Among the most primitive of these galactic fossils is Tucana II - an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy that is about 50 kiloparsecs, or 163,000 light years, from Earth. Now MIT astrophysicists have detected stars at the edge of Tucana II, in a configuration that is surpri

Mainz, Germany (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
Theoretical physicists of the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz are working on a theory that goes beyond the Standard Model of particle physics and can answer questions where the Standard Model has to pass - for example, with respect to the hierarchies of the masses of elementary particles or the existence of dark matter. The central element of the theory

Nottingham UK (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
Scientists have revealed new insights into the behaviour of black holes with research that demonstrates how a phenomenon called backreaction can be simulated. The team from the University of Nottingham have used their simulation of a black hole, involving a specially designed water tank, for this latest research published in Physical Review Letters. This study is the first to demonstrate t

Washington DC (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
NASA has named appointees for senior agency positions. Bhavya Lal joins the agency as acting chief of staff, Phillip Thompson will serve as White House liaison, Alicia Brown will serve as associate administrator for the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Marc Etkind will serve as associate administrator for the agency's Office of Communications. In addition, Jackie McGuinne

Laurel MD (SPX) Feb 02, 2021
NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission to Mercury has been out of operation for nearly six years, but the data it collected keeps on giving, from revealing new insights about Venus' atmosphere to providing a new way to measure the length of time neutrons can survive on their own. Now, a recent study in Nature Communications shows the spacecr