Items tagged with space
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the presence of an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet orbiting within its star’s habitable zone, marking a major milestone in the search for life beyond our solar system.
Located 49 light...
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Astronomers have uncovered one of our cosmic neighborhood's most famous star systems, revealing a third planet that has evaded discovery for more than a decade. The newly-discovered world, Beta Pictoris d, resides 63 light-years away in...
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In a study published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers has detected the first true sugar molecule in interstellar space, giving us a clue that sugar can exist way before planets begin to form.
Using Spain's...
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The federal government is looking to the ocean to solve a growing stress point in the commercial space industry. As part of a fresh initiative, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is exploring whether hundreds of abandoned...
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Intel has announced its Starfire 18A node SoC built for orbital and deep-space applications. Designed explicitly for the U.S. government to satisfy stringent size, weight, power, and cost constraints, this heavy-duty processor merges...
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China has successfully recovered an orbital rocket booster via controlled descent for the first time, breaking what some see as the long-standing monopoly held by American commercial aerospace. During the maiden flight of the Long March...
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This week, SpaceX’s Transporter-17 rideshare rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying 81 payloads into a sun-synchronous orbit. Among them was a softball-sized BOHR (Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability)...
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Japan’s veteran Hayabusa2 spacecraft recently completed a daring, ultra-close flyby of the asteroid Torifune, sending home the first-ever close-ups of a bizarre "two-headed" asteroid located 62 million miles from Earth.
JAXA (the Japan...
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To celebrate its fourth anniversary, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has pierced through the thick blankets of cosmic dust that once obscured the chaotic inner workings of Centaurus A, an active galaxy located 11 million light-years...
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Astronomers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth located just 25 light-years away, offering a major new target in the search for alien life.
The newly discovered planet (GJ...
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Astronomers have grumbled about satellite megaconstellations for years, and those complaints date all the way back to the first bright strings of Starlink satellites streaking across telescope images in 2020. A new study from the European...
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NASA laid out its next moves for its Moon Base program, and the biggest reveal wasn't just new lander contracts. It was the possibility that a nuclear-powered rover built from Mars hardware could end up parked at the lunar South Pole, a...
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NASA’s hard-working James Webb Space Telescope has successfully pierced through interstellar dust to capture 16.5 million stars inside the Cigar Galaxy. Once again, thanks to its infrared instruments, the observatory has unlocked a...
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Backyard astronomers will be able to use their telescopes to focus in on a massive cosmic visitor when it "skims" past Earth this weekend. On June 27 especially, a large asteroid known as (152637) 1997 NC1 will make a close but entirely...
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Scientists have pushed Earth’s oldest known impact crater back to about 3 billion years, and in doing so, they have re-sharpened the debate over how meteorite strikes shaped the planet’s early history. Said crater, in Western Australia’s...
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Astronomers are piecing together a clearer picture of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, in terms of its age and chemical makeup. New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imply that it formed in a very different environment...
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NASA is deploying another high-end telescope to peer into the far reaches of space, and after two decades of development, a launch is now only weeks away. After passing a series of tests, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as it's...
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Astronomers have finally cracked one of the mysteries of the famous GJ504b Pink Planet, discovering that its signature rosy haze is shrouded in bizarre, swirling clouds of salt.
Located 57 light-years from Earth, GJ504b has captivated...
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NASA is turning to a commercial newcomer to reach the Red Planet. Through a newly announced public-private partnership, the agency has selected Relativity Space to build, launch, and operate a Mars orbiter mission scheduled for 2028...
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Do yourself a favor and look up this afternoon to witness the moon passing directly in front of Venus. Known as a lunar occultation, this rare daytime event offers skywatchers across the contiguous United States, Canada, and parts of Central and South America a chance to see the planet vanish...
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Astronomers, with the aid of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, have revealed two striking supernova stories: one hints at a fresh remnant near the Milky Way’s center, while the other shows long-studied wreckage in a nearby galaxy changing...
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A small stone discovered in the sands of Mali is reimagining what we know about the early solar system. By examining this rare lunar meteorite, planetary scientists have mapped out a sequence of cosmic collisions that retell the history...
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