NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is ready to cheer on the launch of Boeing's Starliner crew capsule on a vital uncrewed test flight this week.
Space News & Blog Articles
Tune into the SpaceZE News Network to stay updated on industry news from around the world.
A space laser is tracking subglacial lakes hidden in Antarctica
A NASA satellite in space that shoots a laser beam down to Earth has spotted still more subsurface lakes sandwiched between Antarctica's land and ice.
Hubble telescope spots a complex cloud of gas expanding into space
Iceland may be the last exposed remnant of a nearly Texas-size continent — called Icelandia — that sank beneath the North Atlantic Ocean about 10 million years ago
Progress supply freighter docks with space station
This year, Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to launch the first private space mission into orbit with no professional astronauts.
Rocket Lab to deploy two more BlackSky imaging satellites
Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo are set to make space history with two Venus flybys just 33 hours apart on 9 and 10 August.
Science in motion for ExoMars twin rover
The first science tests for the ExoMars rover replica kicked off after several weeks of driving tests around the Mars Terrain Simulator at the ALTEC premises in Turin, Italy.
A Black Hole Emitted a Flare Away From us, but its Intense Gravity Redirected the Blast Back in our Direction
In 1916, Albert Einstein put the finishing touches on his Theory of General Relativity, a journey that began in 1905 with his attempts to reconcile Newton’s own theories of gravitation with the laws of electromagnetism. Once complete, Einstein’s theory provided a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of the cosmos, where massive objects alter the curvature of spacetime, affecting everything around them.
What’s more, Einstein’s field equations predicted the existence of black holes, objects so massive that even light cannot escape their surfaces. GR also predicts that black holes will bend light in their vicinity, an effect that can be used by astronomers to observe more distant objects. Relying on this technique, an international team of scientists made an unprecedented feat by observing light caused by an X-ray flare that took place behind a black hole.
The team was led by Dr. Dan Wilkins, an astrophysicist with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University and a NASA Einstein Fellow. He was joined by researchers from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia; the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at The Pennsylvania State University, and the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.
Diagram showing how a black hole’s extreme gravity will make X-ray echoes visible from its far side. Credit: ESAUsing the ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes, Wilkins and his team observed bright X-ray flares coming from around a supermassive black hole (SMBH) located at the center of I Zwicky 1 – a spiral galaxy located 1,800 light-years from Earth. Astronomers were not expecting to see this, but because of the SMBH’s extreme gravity (which comes from 10 million Solar masses), flares from behind it were made visible to the XMM-Newton and NuSTAR.
The discovery was made in the course of a survey designed to learn more about the bright and mysterious X-ray light that surrounds a black hole’s event horizon. This “corona” (as its nicknamed) is thought to be the result of gas that falls continuously into the black hole and forms a spinning disk around it. As the ring is accelerated to near the speed of light, it is heated to millions of degrees and generated magnetic fields that get twisted into knots.
All eyes on weather as Boeing looks to Starliner launch on Tuesday
Weather concerns continue as NASA and Boeing look to launch the Starliner capsule on a vital uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station on Tuesday (Aug. 3).
Look up! Saturn shines bright, shows off rings as it reaches opposition.
Starting Monday (Aug. 2), you can find Saturn shining in the sky as part of a celestial phenomenon called opposition.
4 bizarre Stephen Hawking theories that turned out to be right (and 6 we're not sure about)
Some of Hawking's theories revolutionized the way we view the universe, but others still leave scientists scratching their heads.
Welcome, Jupiter & Saturn!
The Perseids are upon us — and as you're looking out for shooting stars, look for Jupiter and Saturn low in the southeast as soon as night begins to fall.
The post Welcome, Jupiter & Saturn! appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
A hundred days of science for Thomas
“I am finding it magical every day, but there is also a lot of routine,” says ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet reflecting on his first 100 days aboard the International Space Station during his second mission. In total, Thomas has logged 296 days in space.
Lightweight Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic Fuel Tanks Pass a Critical Test, and Could Knock a lot of Weight off a Rocket’s dry Mass
Material science is still the unsung hero of space exploration. Rockets are flashier, and control systems more precise, but they are useless without materials that withstand the immense temperatures of forces required to get people and things off the planet. Now a team from MT Aerospace, working on a grant from ESA, has developed a new type of material that will be immensely useful in one of the most important parts of any rocket engine – the fuel tanks.
The material itself isn’t new – known as Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP), the technology has been around for decades, and is widely used in automotive, aerospace, and civil engineering. However, no one has been able to successfully make a rocket fuel tank out of it until now.
Outside test of a small scale composite tank.Credit – MT Aerospace
Several challenges had to be overcome first – it had to be made leakproof and then had to withstand the extreme cryogenic pressures that come with storing rocket fuel. Hydrogen and oxygen, which are combined in a rocket engine, are notoriously difficult to retain. Existing field tanks, even those primarily made out of some form of composite, had an interior metal lining to ensure the highly reactive gas didn’t escape out of the tank.
Metallic linings have a downside though – they are heavy, and require many more parts and manufacturing steps than a pure CFRP tank would. Since launch costs are one of the primary cost drivers of space exploration, and weight is tied directly to launch cost, decreasing both the weight and the number of components is appealing for rocket manufacturers.
ESA wasn’t the only one with this idea – NASA and Boeing were jointly developing a composite tank as well, like this one seen in 2014.Credit: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given
That appeal has been well known for a long time, so ESA spent some research money on projects to develop a novel, lightweight fuel tanks. The new technology developed by MT Aerospace was one of the outcomes of that funding.
Hercules, the mighty strongman of the summer sky
A staple of mythology, the hero Hercules has a strange celestial story.
Perseverance Fails to Collect its First Sample
The growing problem of space junk poses a risk to future space missions, but the solution isn't going to be easy.
7-Eleven launches Coca-Cola Slurpee on stratospheric 'space' flight
Three astronauts on China's new space station have performed the country's first spacewalk and are busy configuring the module for future crews.
How Time Flies: Perseverance and Ingenuity Have Been on Mars for a Year
A sophisticated telecommunications satellite that can be completely repurposed while in space has launched.
OSIRIS-Rex got to Know Bennu Really Well. Apparently, There’s now a 1-in-1,750 Chance That it’ll hit Earth by 2300
An Ariane 5 rocket lifts off Friday from a launch pad in French Guiana. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – P. Piron
A European Ariane 5 rocket launched from French Guiana Friday, succeeding on its first flight in nearly a year to deploy a pair of geostationary communications satellites for commercial operators in Brazil and France.
The launch was a key test of the Ariane 5 rocket ahead of a flight later this year to send the James Webb Space Telescope toward its observation post nearly a million miles from Earth. The European Space Agency is providing the launch for JWST, a joint program between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency with a cost of more than $10 billion.
Engineers introduced modifications to the Ariane 5’s payload fairing, or nose cone, to reduce vibrations imparted on the satellites during separation of the shroud, which protects payloads during the first few minutes of flight through the atmosphere.
Ground teams will analyze data from the rocket to make sure the changes reduced the vibrations. Another Ariane 5 launch is scheduled for late September, then JWST will be next in line for a liftoff in November or December.
The Ariane 5 is one of the most powerful rockets in the world. Friday’s mission marked the 110th flight of an Ariane 5 rocket since 1996, but it was the first Ariane 5 launch since last August, an unusually long gap between missions to allow engineers to resolve the fairing vibration concern before the launch of JWST.
Stunning image shows dark tendrils masking giant galaxy near Earth
See photos of Boeing's Orbital Flight Test 2 mission, the second uncrewed test flight of its Starliner astronaut taxi.
Photos: Inspiration4 launches from Kennedy Space Center
Europe's Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket roared back into action today (July 30) after nearly a year-long hiatus, launching two telecommunications satellites to orbit.
