Astronomers have spotted a white dwarf that miraculously survived its own thermonuclear detonation, raising questions over how and why these stars create supernovas.
Space News & Blog Articles
Tune into the SpaceZE News Network to stay updated on industry news from around the world.
James Webb Space Telescope scientists prepare for 1st operational images: Listen in Wednesday
Join in for free Wednesday (June 29) as NASA celebrates the forthcoming end of commissioning for its $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope.
What are Dobsonian Telescopes?
Discover what Dobsonian telescopes are as we take you through their design and widespread popularity among astronomers.
Successful Launch of Capstone, the Lunar Gateway Pathfinder
Capstone, a small pathfinder spacecraft with a big mission, launched today to pave the way for crewed return to the Moon.
The post Successful Launch of Capstone, the Lunar Gateway Pathfinder appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
NASA launches sounding rocket from Australia
It was NASA's first launch from a commercial facility outside the United States, and more are coming very soon.
Bizarre 'polygons' are cracking through the surface of Mars
A new image from NASA's HIRISE camera reveals strange 'polygons' cracking open the surface of Mars. It's just a typical sign of spring, scientists say.
'Obi-Wan Kenobi' finale delivers the return of the Jedi
‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ is far, far away from being perfect, but the finale boasts some of Disney’s most compelling Star Wars yet.
SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy rocket prototype moves to launch pad for tests
SpaceX's massive Starship project was on the move last week, as its "Booster 7" Super Heavy rocket prototype moved to its South Texas test pad Thursday (June 23).
SpaceX mission this week to kick off busy launch calendar for SES
The SES 22 communications satellite during encapsulation inside SpaceX’s payload fairing. Credit: SpaceX
A new European-built television broadcasting satellite to cover the United States is set for liftoff Wednesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the first of 11 SES-owned telecom spacecraft scheduled to fly on six launches from Cape Canaveral by the end of the year.
The launches for SES, one of the largest traditional telecom satellite operators, will use five SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets and one United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.
Five of the satellites, including the SES 22 spacecraft set for launch Wednesday, are designed for C-band television broadcast services over the United States. SES also plans to launch the first six satellites for the company’s O3b mPower broadband network, providing data connectivity and internet services around the world.
The first six O3b mPower satellites will launch on three Falcon 9 rockets, heading for positions in a unique orbit at an altitude of about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers). Those three launches are currently on track to fly by the end of 2022, according to SES.
The upcoming satellite deployment campaign comes after a relatively quiet period in launches for SES, with just one new SES satellite launched since 2019. But the schedules for two different segments of SES’s business have aligned to create this year’s rapid-fire launch cadence.
Watch live: Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship to depart space station
A commercial Cygnus supply ship from Northrop Grumman is set to depart the International Space Station Tuesday, completing a four-month stay after delivering more than 8,000 pounds of cargo and boosting the research lab into a slightly higher orbit.
The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled for release from the space station’s Canadian-built robotic arm at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT) Tuesday. Mission control delayed the release by an hour Tuesday to adjust the Cygnus spacecraft’s post-departure trajectory to be clear of space debris, and allow for improved communications with the cargo ship on its course away from the space station.
Ground teams will command the robotic arm to release the Cygnus spacecraft. Mission control unberthed the Cygnus cargo ship from the station’s Unity module early Tuesday, then moved the robotic arm to position the departing spacecraft in the proper position for release below the orbiting research lab.
The Northrop Grumman supply freighter arrived at the space station Feb. 21, two days after launching from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia aboard an Antares rocket.
NASA's tiny CAPSTONE cubesat launches on pioneering moon mission
NASA's tiny CAPSTONE spacecraft has begun its long, history-making journey to the moon.
Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo ship boosts International Space Station's orbit
A Cygnus spacecraft reboosted the International Space Station to its normal operating altitude on June 25, 2022.
Venus Aerospace unveils its new dart-like Mach 9 hypersonic plane design
Venus Aerospace has recently released design images of its new Mach 9 aircraft concept.
Can we time travel? A theoretical physicist provides some answers
Can we time travel like they do in the movies? The laws of physics might forbid it.
Former astronauts and space industry professionals comment on fall of Roe v. Wade
Space exploration is feeling the shockwaves from the historic decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to revoke Roe v. Wade on Friday (June 24).
Live coverage: NASA moon mission counting down to launch with Rocket Lab
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1B on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand carrying NASA’s small CAPSTONE mission to the moon. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
Rocket Lab’s live video webcast begins approximately 20 minutes prior to launch, and will be available on this page.
Contract secures design for ESA’s FORUM satellite
ESA has awarded a contract worth €160 million to Airbus in the UK to build the Earth Explorer FORUM satellite. This exciting new mission will yield unique insight into the planet’s radiation budget and how it is controlled – thereby filling in a critical missing piece of the climate jigsaw.
Short for Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring, FORUM is ESA’s ninth Earth Explorer mission.
Gaia Could Detect Free-Floating Black Holes Passing Near Stars in the Milky Way
The thing with black holes is they’re hard to see. Typically we can only detect their presence when we can detect their gravitational pull. And if there are rogue black holes simply traveling throughout the galaxy and not tied to another luminous astronomical, it would be fiendishly hard to detect them. But now we have a new potential data set to do so.
Gaia just released its massive 3rd data set that contains astrometry data for over 1.5 billion stars, about 1% of the total number of stars in the galaxy. According to a new paper by Jeff Andrews of the University of Florida and Northwestern University, it might be possible for Gaia to detect perturbances caused by a rogue black hole briefly interacting with one of the 1.5 billion stars in the catalog. Unfortunately, it’s just not very likely that any such interaction actually took place during Gaia’s observing time.
This paper is the third in a series that explores potentially using the trove of new Gaia data to find companions to some of its stars. Luminous stars are Gaia’s specialty, but many have “dark companions” that are not as detectable as their light-emitting partners. Not all of these dark companions are black holes – some might be dead stars that have already burnt through their fuel supply but weren’t massive enough to form a black hole.
Recent Fraser video discussing the discovery of the mass of the first rogue black hole.The first paper looked at how scientists could use Gaia’s data to pick up on signatures of those dark companions. The second focused on whether the data contains hints of very long binary orbital relationships with orbital periods that outlast the observational timeline. Both of those studies point to valid analyses that someone will undoubtedly undertake now that the Gaia data is released. However, they don’t address what is potentially the most interesting of all dark companions – black holes.
Estimates put the number of black holes in the Milky Way at between 10 million and 1 billion, between .01% and 1% of the probable total number of stars in the galaxy. But most of these are only the size of a star and extremely hard to detect using conventional data. Their pull might just be noticeable in Gaia’s data set, though.
Mini-mission to blaze NASA’s trail back to the moon
An engineer at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems inspects solar arrays on NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Dominic Hart
NASA and commercial companies are ready to launch a 55-pound spacecraft from New Zealand to the moon Tuesday on a pathfinder mission to scout the orbit where engineers plan to assemble a mini-space station as a waypoint for astronauts flying to and from the lunar surface.
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, mission is set to blast off at 5:55 a.m. EDT (0955 GMT) Tuesday from Rocket Lab’s privately-owned spaceport on the North Island of New Zealand.
An Electron rocket and Photon space tug built by Rocket Lab will haul the CAPSTONE spacecraft into orbit, and then set the probe on a course to intercept the moon later this year.
The spacecraft is about the size of a microwave oven. The mission was developed at a cost of $30 million, an unusually low budget for a project of CAPSTONE’s ambition. And the payoff could ripple across the commercial launch and small satellite industries, space science, and NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the surface of the moon.
“Part of what makes this mission compelling, from my perspective, is how it is pushing forward our desire to increase the pace of space exploration, the expansion of commercial space capabilities, helping support not just our major human exploration program, but also helping expand the capability of small missions to reach new destinations and operate in challenging new environments,” said Chris Baker, a manager in NASA’s small spacecraft technology program.
We Could Discover new Kinds of Particles Around Black Holes Through Gravitational Waves
On February 11th, 2016, researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the detection of gravitational waves (GW) for the first time. As predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, these waves result from massive objects merging, which causes ripples through spacetime that can be detected. Since then, astrophysicists have theorized countless ways that GWs could be used to study physics beyond the standard models of gravity and particle physics and advance our understanding of the Universe.
To date, GWs have been proposed as a means of studying Dark Matter, the interiors of neutron stars and supernovae, mergers between supermassive black holes, and more. In a recent study, a team of physicists from the University of Amsterdam and Harvard University has proposed a way where GWs could be used to search for ultralight bosons around rotating black holes. This method could not only offer a new way to discern the properties of binary black holes but could lead to the discovery of new particles beyond the Standard Model.
The research was conducted by researchers at the Gravitation Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam (GRAPPA), at the University of Amsterdam, with support provided by the Center for Theoretical Physics and the National Center for Theoretical Sciences at the University of Taipei (Taiwan), and Harvard University. The paper that describes their work, titled “Sharp Signals of Boson Clouds in Black Hole Binary Inspirals,” recently appeared in the Physical Review Letters.
It’s a well-known fact that normal matter will infall toward black holes over time, which will form an accretion disk around its outer edge (aka. Event Horizon). This disk will be accelerated to incredible speeds, causing the material within to become super-heated and release tremendous amounts of radiation while slowly being accreted onto the black hole’s face. However, for the past few decades, scientists have observed that black holes will shed some of their mass through a process called “superradiance.”
This phenomenon was studied by Stephen Hawking, who described how rotating black holes would throw off radiation that would appear “real” to a nearby observer, but “virtual” to a distant one. In the process of transferring this radiation from one reference frame to another, the acceleration of the particle itself would cause it to transform from virtual to real. This exotic form of energy, known as “Hawking Radiation,” will form clouds of low-mass particles around a black hole. This leads to a “gravitational atom,” so-named because they resemble ordinary atoms (clouds of particles surrounding a core)
