Study suggests Mars too small for long-term habitability
The habitability of Mars and other exoplanets orbiting in a star’s habitable zone depends on a wide variety of factors, but one of the most fundamental may be size.
Exoplanet collision likely stripped away a terrestrial world’s atmosphere
Cataclysmic impacts like the one believed to have formed the Earth-Moon system are thought to be common in young, still-forming solar systems, but it’s been difficult to catch sight of such activity as it happens.
This bizarre ‘superbubble’ spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope has scientists scratching their heads
Wispy clouds of gas and a strange “superbubble” dominate the view of a new Hubble Space Telescope image. The view stars a nebula, or gas cloud, known as N44, that is located in a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. In the newly released image, you can see hydrogen gas glowing in the dark, along with dark dust lanes and stars of all ages, in a complex structure roughly 170,000 light-years from Earth.
Musk says Starship may be ready for orbital launch next month, but FAA review continues
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, said Friday the company’s huge new Starship rocket could be ready for its first orbital test launch from South Texas as soon as November, but the schedule comes with two big uncertainties that may push the launch to next year.
Blue Origin and Sierra Space team up for commercial space station
Blue Origin and Sierra Space announced Monday they are leading development of a commercial space complex named Orbital Reef. The companies said Orbital Reef will be operational by the time NASA and its partners retire the International Space Station.
Japan successfully launches replacement for decade-old navigation satellite
A replacement for an aging satellite in Japan’s regional navigation network successfully launched Monday from Tanegashima Space Center aboard an H-2A rocket, heading to an orbit more than 20,000 miles above Earth.
Kuaizhou flight sets new record for Chinese launch activity
The successful deployment of a small remote sensing satellite Wednesday 27 October 2021 set a new record for Chinese orbital launch attempts in a single year at 40 missions, surpassing a mark set in 2018 and 2020. A solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A rocket vaulted off a launch pad Wednesday at the Jiuquan space base in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China. The smallsat launcher headed south from Jiuquan to place its payload into a polar orbit.
Space solar power’s time may finally be coming
The sun never sets in space.
The idea of harvesting solar energy via power-beaming satellites has therefore long intrigued researchers looking for ways to feed an energy-ravenous Earth.
That reflection has fomented for decades but is now garnering new looks all over the world: Technologists in the U.S. and China, experts in Japan and researchers within the European Space Agency and the United Kingdom Space Agency are all working to make space-based solar power a reality.
World leaders pledge a crackdown on methane emissions. Here’s how satellites can help
Satellites will play a key role in helping the world slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane in line with a global pledge introduced by the U.S. President Joe Biden and European Union leaders at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow this week.
Sun outburst goes ‘cannibal’ as fast new blob overtakes a slower one
It’s been a busy few days for our sun, which has produced three of the outbursts that scientists call coronal mass ejections (CMEs) since Monday (Nov. 1).
Hubble remains in safe mode after latest glitch
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, offline for more than a week because of an issue with its instruments, is likely to remain out of service for another week as engineers investigate the problem.
An asteroid just zipped past Earth closer than the moon’s orbit
A bus-sized asteroid made a harmless close pass by our planet on Sunday (Oct. 17). Asteroid 2021 TG14 passed by Earth at a distance of roughly 155,000 miles (250,000 km). That’s well within the orbit of our moon, which orbits at an average distance of nearly 239,000 miles (385,000 km).
China’s lunar rock samples show lava flowed on the moon 2 billion years ago
Lava oozed across the moon’s surface just 2 billion years ago, bits of lunar rocks retrieved by China’s Chang’e-5 mission reveal. A chemical analysis of the volcanic rocks confirms that the moon remained volcanically active far longer that its size would suggest possible, researchers report online October 7 in Science.
Earth is reflecting less light. It’s not clear if that’s a trend
The amount of sunlight that Earth reflects back into space — measured by the dim glow seen on the dark portions of a crescent moon’s face — has decreased measurably in recent years. Whether the decline in earthshine is a short-term blip or yet another ominous sign for Earth’s climate is up in the air, scientists suggest.
