Copernical Team
Proposed base for Elon Musk's SpaceX project threatens lands and livelihoods in Biak, Papua
In December 2020, the Indonesian government had offered the Papuan island of Biak, home to some 100,000 inhabitants, to the centibillionare Elon Musk as a potential launch site for the SpaceX Mars-bound expedition.
SpaceX, an aerospace corporation founded in 2002 by Musk, is arguably the world's most leading-edge technological project. It aims to enable humans to travel to and live on Mars Rocket Lab mission failure blamed on possible engine problem
California-based launch company Rocket Lab has blamed a possible engine problem for the loss Saturday of its Electron rocket and commercial satellite payload.
The rocket fell safely into the Pacific Ocean off the company's launch site in New Zealand due to an automatic shutdown triggered by safety systems, according to the company.
It was the 20th mission for Electron and the sec Alien radioactive element prompts creation rethink
The first-ever discovery of an extraterrestrial radioactive isotope on Earth has scientists rethinking the origins of the elements on our planet.
The tiny traces of plutonium-244 were found in ocean crust alongside radioactive iron-60. The two isotopes are evidence of violent cosmic events in the vicinity of Earth millions of years ago.
Star explosions, or supernovae create many of t Dating the stars
Scientists have succeeded in dating some of the oldest stars in our galaxy with unprecedented precision by combining data from the stars' oscillations with information about their chemical composition.
The team led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, surveyed around a hundred red giant stars, and were able to determine that some of these were originally part of a satellite gala Understanding muscle wasting in space at the molecular level
Most of us have imagined how free it would feel to float around, like an astronaut, in conditions of reduced gravity. But have you ever considered what the effects of reduced gravity might have on muscles? Gravity is a constant force on Earth which all living creatures have evolved to rely on and adapt to. Space exploration has brought about many scientific and technological advances, yet manned Monitoring coastal changes in Greece
Hundreds of satellite images spanning over 25 years have been compiled to show the evolution of Greece’s ever-changing coastlines.
NASA launches rocket in search of aurora answers
NASA launched one of its largest sounding rockets Sunday from an East Coast facility in an experiment led by a University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute space physics professor.
The four-stage Black Brant XII rocket carrying the KiNET-X experiment of principal investigator Peter Delamere lifted off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 8:44 p.m. Eastern time. The ascent of the rocket, which flew on an arc into the ionosphere before beginning its planned descent over the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, could be seen along the East Coast.
The experiment seeks to understand how a large mass of plasma such as the solar wind interacts at the particle level with, for example, the plasma of Earth's space environment.
Name the mission
Video:
00:01:56
We need a name for our new spacecraft. Its mission? To spot potentially hazardous solar storms before they reach Earth.
Between them, our greatest minds have come up with ... not very much.
ESA needs you.
60 years later, is it time to update the Drake equation?
On November 1, 1961, a number of prominent scientists converged on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, for a three-day conference. A year earlier, this facility had been the site of the first modern SETI experiment (Project Ozma), where famed astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan used the Green Bank telescope (aka "Big Ear") to monitor two nearby sun-like stars—Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti.
While unsuccessful, Ozma became a focal point for scientists who were interested in this burgeoning field known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). As a result, Drake and Sagan were motivated to hold the very first SETI conference, wherein the subject of looking for possible extraterrestrial radio signals would be discussed. In preparation for the meeting, Drake prepared the following heuristic equation:
N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
This would come to be known as the "Drake equation," which is considered by many to be one of the most renowned equations in the history of science.
Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) starts 5-year survey
A five-year quest to map the universe and unravel the mysteries of "dark energy" is beginning officially today, May 17, at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. To complete its quest, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will capture and study the light from tens of millions of galaxies and other distant objects in the universe.
DESI is an international science collaboration managed by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or Berkeley Lab, with primary funding from DOE's Office of Science.
By gathering light from some 30-million galaxies, project scientists say DESI will help them construct a 3D map of the universe with unprecedented detail.