Space News & Blog Articles

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Sentinel-1 and AI uncover glacier crevasses

Scientists have developed a new Artificial Intelligence, or AI, technique using radar images from Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite mission, to reveal how the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue in West Antarctica is being damaged by squeezing and stretching as it flows from the middle of the continent to the coast. Being able to track fractures and crevasses in the ice beneath the overlying snow is key to better predicting the fate of floating ice tongues under climate change.

All systems go for Virgin Orbit's first UK launch, a historic 1st for Europe

A giant leap for the U.K. space sector is set to take place tonight as Virgin Orbit readies for its first-ever launch from Britain, and from Europe.

'One of the greatest damn mysteries of physics': We studied distant suns in the most precise astronomical test of electromagnetism yet

There's an awkward, irksome problem with our understanding of nature's laws that physicists have been trying to explain for decades.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in 2023

Although no total lunar eclipses occur this year, skywatchers can look forward to two “central” solar eclipses — including an annular event in October whose path runs from Oregon through Texas.

The post Solar and Lunar Eclipses in 2023 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

See a naked-eye comet at its closest to the sun on Thursday (Jan. 12)

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which could be visible with the naked eye, will pass the sun on Thursday (Jan. 12) before approaching the Earth for the first time since the last ice age.

Watch SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule leave space station on Jan. 9

A robotic SpaceX cargo craft is scheduled to depart the International Space Station Monday afternoon (Jan. 9), and you can watch the action live.

Comet E3 ZTF Brightens as the First Good Comet of 2023

The first good comet of the year, Comet E3 ZTF is a fine object for northern hemisphere observers in January.

As in years previous, 2023 kicks of with another descent binocular comet.

If you haven’t seen C/2022 E3 ZTF yet, you’ll soon have your chance. Discovered by the Zwicky Transient Survey searching for supernovae, E3 ZTF was first spotted as a +17th magnitude object gliding through the constellation of Aquila the Eagle on the night of March 2nd, 2022.

As of writing this, the comet is shinning at magnitude +7 in the constellation Corona Borealis. This currently places it low to the northeast for northern hemisphere observers in the early morning hours. The good news is, the view improves in late January into early February, as the comet heads towards circumpolar (much like Comet C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp did in the winter of 1996-1997) and stays above the horizon all night.

the expected light curve for comet E3 ZTF. Credit Sechii Yoshida.

With a high 109 degree orbital inclination relative to the ecliptic plane, Comet E3 ZTF is on an estimated ~50,000 year (inbound) orbit.





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Is Space Power a Good Idea? A new Spacecraft is Going to Find Out!

Solar power, long considered the leading contender among renewable energy sources, has advanced significantly over the past few decades. The cost of manufacturing and installing solar panels has dropped considerably, and efficiency has increased, making it price competitive with coal, oil, and fossil fuels. However, some barriers, like distribution and storage, still prevent solar power from being adopted more aggressively. In addition, there’s the ever-present issue of intermittency, where arrays cannot collect power in bad weather and during evenings.

These issues have led to the concept of space-based solar power (SBSP), where satellites equipped with solar arrays could gather solar energy twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year. To test this method, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) recently launched a technology demonstrator to space. It’s called the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD), which will test several key components of SBSP and evaluate the method’s ability to harvest clean energy and beam it back to Earth.

The SSPD launched at 06:55 a.m. PST (09:55 a.m. EST) on Tuesday, January 3rd, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC 40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission (Transporter 6) was a dedicated rideshare that transported dozens of small satellites to space and deposited them in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). The 50-kilogram (110 lbs) satellite was carried aboard a Vigoride spacecraft (provided by commercial space company Momentus) and consisted of three main experiments, each tasked with testing a different key technology.

The Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) began in 2011 when Donald Bren – philanthropist, chairman of the Irvine Company, and a lifetime member of the Caltech Board of Trustees – and Caltech’s then-president Jean-Lou Chameau came together to discuss the potential for a space-based solar power research project. By 2013, Bren and his wife (Caltech trustee Brigitte Bren) began funding the project through the Donald Bren Foundation, which will eventually exceed $100 million. As Bren said in a recent Caltech press release:

“For many years, I’ve dreamed about how space-based solar power could solve some of humanity’s most urgent challenges. Today, I’m thrilled to be supporting Caltech’s brilliant scientists as they race to make that dream a reality.”

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Are Chemical Rockets or Solar Sails Better to Return Resources from Asteroids?

If and when we ever get an asteroid mining industry off the ground, one of the most important decisions to be made in the structure of any asteroid mining mission would be how to get the resources back to where all of our other infrastructure is – somewhere around the Earth. That decision typically will focus on one of two propulsion methodologies – chemical rockets, such as those we already use to get us into space in the first place, or solar sails, which, while slower and unable to get us into orbit, don’t require any fuel. So, which propulsion methodology is better for these future missions? A study by researchers at the University of Glasgow looked at those two scenarios and came out with a clear-cut answer – solar sails.

When answering these types of theoretical questions, it is essential to impose limits on the answers. For example, billions of asteroids exist in the solar system, so it’s more realistic to only look at those known as Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). But even so, there are over 30,000 known NEAs. It would have been impossible for lead author Merel Vergaaij, then a Ph.D. student at the University, and her colleagues to calculate optimized trajectories for each of them.

So they broke the area around Earth down into generalized orbital parameters – semi-major axis distance, eccentricity, and inclination. With those three parameters, it is easier to get a handle on what a general transfer orbit would look like to a given asteroid in that region of space, some of which would be quite close to Earth on its orbital path. 

Other constraints were also necessary – such as calculating only the cost and benefit of transferring material back from the asteroid, not the mining of the asteroid itself. Getting the mining equipment there and set up was considered beyond the scope of this paper. Moreover, there needed to be a wait time at the asteroid itself so the return mission could have time to stock up on the material it would be carrying.

That material, in this calculation, was volatiles. Volatiles, such as water, have been a focal point of asteroid mining discussions, as they form the basis of rocket fuel that would be needed to explore farther into the solar system and cost a lot of money to bring up from Earth itself. Moreover, chemical rockets can then use some of those volatiles as their own fuel to make their way back to the Earth system.

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Virgin Orbit counting down to first historic satellite launch from British soil

Virgin Orbit’s carrier aircraft arrived at Spaceport Cornwall from the company’s home base in Mojave, California, late last year for final launch preparations. Credit: Virgin Orbit

A new chapter in spaceflight history will be made Monday when the first ever satellites to be launched into orbit from Western Europe begin their journey into space inside a rocket slung beneath a converted jumbo jet carrier aircraft that will take off from Cornwall on the southwest peninsula of England.

Virgin Orbit’s ‘Start Me Up’ mission is scheduled for liftoff at 5:16 p.m. EST (2216 GMT) Monday, Jan. 9, from Spaceport Cornwall at Newquay Airport. It will be the first orbital launch from the United Kingdom and the first commercial mission to take flight from Western Europe.

At a pre-launch media briefing in Cornwall on Sunday afternoon Dan Hart, CEO of Virgin Orbit, said; “We are looking very carefully at the readiness of everything. Right now all systems are ‘green’, the rocket was armed yesterday and we are continuing with loading fuel.”

“We are going to proceed cautiously on this flight because we are in different airspace with challenging conditions. We want to make sure we give our pilots every opportunity for a successful mission.”

Virgin Orbit, part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, who founded the Virgin Atlantic airline and more recently the Virgin Galactic sub-orbital spaceplane, will deploy its modified Boeing 747, with a giant booster rocket attached under its wing, for the first time outside the company’s base in the United States.



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New JWST Image Shows That Grand Spiral Galaxies had Already Formed 11 Billion Years ago

For the first time this week, photos from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) revealed that stellar bars were present in some galaxies as far back as 11 billion years ago. Stellar bars are a defining feature of about two-thirds of all spiral galaxies in the Universe, including our own Milky Way. The discovery has implications for astronomers’ understanding of galactic evolution, indicating that bars form very quickly and may persist for much of a galaxy’s lifespan, influencing its shape and structure.

Stellar bars are regions of intense star formations that radiate out from a galaxy’s core. Through the motion of inner orbiting stars, dust, and gas clouds, they build up as a wave of dense material that perpetuates itself and spreads slowly outward while pulling raw material inwards. These regions become stellar nurseries that churn out new stars at a rapid pace.

Six barred galaxies as seen by JSWT, as they would have looked in the early universe, between 8.4 and 11 billion years ago (Gyr). Credit: NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin.

The new JWST images, presented by The University of Texas at Austin on January 5th, show six barred spiral galaxies over 8.4 million years old, two of which are older than 11 billion years (the oldest galaxy ever seen is around 13.4 billion years old).

Most of these galaxies were previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, like EGS-23205, pictured below. (EGS stands for Extended Groth Strip, a region of the sky that has been extensively images and studied by international surveys). However, in the Hubble images, the bars are largely obscured.

Galaxy EGS23205, as seen by Hubble (left, taken in the near-infrared filter), and JWST (right, mid-infrared image). Credit: NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin.

JWST has an advantage over JWST in observing extremely old and distant galaxies, partly because its larger mirror can collect more light from distant, dim objects. But it also has an advantage due to its use of infrared rather than optical wavelengths. Light from older and more distant objects is ‘red-shifted’ along the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning that JWST’s detectors can pick them up better than Hubble can.



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Amazing photos of gorgeously green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZFT) in the night sky (gallery)

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is already putting on a show as it makes its way through our solar system.

Watch SpaceX launch 40 OneWeb internet satellites on Sunday night

SpaceX plans to launch 40 more internet satellites for the communications company OneWeb on Sunday night (Jan. 8), and you can watch the action live.

BlueWalker 3, an enormous and bright communications satellite, is genuinely alarming astronomers

On a dark night, away from the city lights, you can see the stars in the same way as your ancestors did centuries ago.

This is our best look yet at how young stars stifle planetary formation

Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers conducted the most in-depth study of planet-killing stars ever.

NASA's moon-orbiting space station will be claustrophobic, architect admits

Living quarters of NASA's moon orbiting Gateway station will be so tiny that astronauts will not be able to stand upright inside, an architect involved in the station's design said.

What is Intuitive Machines and how is it aiming for the moon?

Heading to Schroter's Valley, the lunar south pole and Reiner Gamma, Intuitive Machines' trio of missions are part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery Services program.

Launch preps underway for first of up to five Falcon Heavy missions this year

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket for the USSF-67 mission inside the integration hangar at Launch Complex 39A. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is set to kick off a busy week of launch preparations at Kennedy Space Center for the first of five planned Falcon Heavy rocket missions this year, targeting a dusk departure no earlier than Thursday evening from Launch Complex 39A on a flight for the U.S. Space Force.

The mission for the Space Force, designated USSF-67, will deploy two military spacecraft into a high-altitude geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. It will be the fifth flight of a Falcon Heavy rocket, one of the most powerful launchers in the world, and the first of five Falcon Heavy missions on SpaceX’s schedule for 2023.

Technicians inside SpaceX’s rocket integration hangar near pad 39A have mated the three booster cores for the Falcon Heavy, and the transporter-erector needed to carry the rocket to the rocket to the pad rolled into the hangar Saturday. Ground teams plan to lower the Falcon Heavy onto the transporter-erector and roll it to the launch pad in preparation for a test-firing of its 27 Merlin main engines early in the week.

The Falcon Heavy will roll back inside the hangar after the engine test-firing to receive its payload compartment, containing two Space Force satellites encapsulated inside the rocket’s nose cone. Then SpaceX will roll the fully-assembled launcher back to pad 39A and raise it vertical for final countdown preparations.

The launch is scheduled for no earlier than Thursday, during a launch period running from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. EST (2200-0300 GMT on Thursday into Friday). The exact launch time will be revealed closer to the launch date, but liftoff is expected to occur around 6 p.m. EST, shortly after sunset on Florida’s Space Coast.


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Eruption on Io, Moon Navigation, Space-Based Power Test

NASA is looking for dangerous asteroids, Io is blasting lava into space, the solar wind could be creating water on the Moon, space power is finally getting a test.

NASA Makes Asteroid Defence a Priority

NASA has taken a significant step towards defending the Earth from asteroids and announced that the NEO Surveyor Mission has moved into the development phase. Once launched in 2028, this space telescope flies to the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange Point and surveys the sky in infrared, looking for previously unknown asteroids. Even the darkest asteroids will be visible in the infrared, and from this vantage point, it’ll be able to find asteroids that Earth-based astronomers can’t detect. When you match this with the success of DART, it looks like humanity is getting a handle on the asteroid threat.

More about NEO Surveyor telescope.

Io Is Having a Major Vulcanic Outburst

Astronomers have been watching Jupiter’s moon Io and detected enormous volcanic outbursts starting last summer. According to one scientist who has been watching the moon since 2017, this is the largest volcanic outburst he’s ever seen. Because of its low gravity, volcanic eruptions can hurl lava with escape velocity, putting it into orbit around Jupiter. It’s believed this orbital lava contributes to surface features on other Jovian moons and forms part of Jupiter’s rings.

More about eruptions on Io.







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Arecibo Studied 191 Asteroids That Flew Past the Earth. All the Data are Available in a new Paper

Even from beyond the grave, Arecibo is still contributing to new discoveries. Back in October, researchers released a “treasure trove of data” from what was then the world’s most powerful radio telescope on the radar signatures of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). Not only will these observations help defend the planet if any of those asteroids happen to be hazardous, but they can also help the burgeoning asteroid mining industry scan for targets.

Even though this is the largest data dump of its kind, it still only covers 191 asteroids of the 30,000 known NEAs. Those asteroids were scanned between December 2017 and December 2019 using a technique known as delay-Doppler radar. Radar is one of the most important wavelengths to study these objects with, as it allows scientists to get a much higher resolution than other ground-based sensing techniques.

A resolution of 7.5m is pretty precise for the number of asteroids in the study – most had only been seen as faint dots on an image plate beforehand. It’s also helpful in understanding a few other interesting characteristics of the asteroids, such as spin periods and sizes. But what might be even more interesting is their polarization.

Astronomy Cast Episode paying homage to the Arecibo Observatory.

The polarization of an object is indicative of what is on the surface and potentially what is then under the surface of these bodies. That is of particular interest to asteroid mining companies, and the Arecibo release contains that data for 110 of the asteroids, and a few of them were particularly interesting.

There is a shortage of NEAs that are “metal rich,” which is one of the main characteristics that asteroid miners are looking for in a potential mining prospect. Two of the 110 asteroids studied seemed to have high albedos, indicating that they could be metal-rich – a rare find in the area around Earth.

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