Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 27, 2023
I am 'shadow' Geo science team lead (GeoSTL) today, helping a new colleague to learn the details of the role. It's so amazing that we train the next generation, in year 11 of our mission. I still remember my own training, as I wasn't part of the initial cohort of GeoSTLs.
Inspired by watching my colleague doing a great job, I went back through my notebook, and found out that one of the ear
Paris (ESA) Apr 26, 2023
The ESA/NASA SOHO observatory has overturned 14 years of thinking about the strange Sun-skirting 'rock comet' known as Phaethon that could reopen the mystery of how the Geminid meteor shower was born.
Every December, the Geminid meteor shower lights up Earth's skies as our planet plunges through a vast cloud of dust in space. For years, the p
Beijing (XNA) Apr 26, 2023
China has big plans to advance its space exploration and development, but whether those plans can become a reality depends on the capability of the country's carrier rockets, or more specifically, rocket engines.
China has some of the world's best rocket engines, ranging from huge ones lifting the Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket to small models elevating a craft from the lunar surface, but
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 26, 2023
When a lander descends toward the moon - or a rocky planet, asteroid, or comet - the exhaust plume of the rocket interacts with the surface, causing erosion and kicking up regolith particles. The resulting blanket of dusty debris can create a dangerous brownout effect, limiting visibility and potentially damaging the spacecraft or nearby equipment.
In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing,
Oslo (AFP) April 25, 2023
The Norwegian foreign ministry expressed irritation Tuesday with Sweden for not immediately informing it of a research rocket that crashed in Norway, in a rare spat between the two neighbours.
The rocket, which was launched early Monday from the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, northern Sweden, plunged into a mountainside in the Malselv municipality in Norway's far north, about 10 kilometres
Paris, France (SPX) Apr 26, 2023
ArianeGroup, Eutelsat and Magellium have won a contract from the French space agency (CNES), as part of the space component of the France 2030. Investing for the Future plan, with the aim of enhancing space surveillance capabilities in order to substantially improve the security of space operations.
The consortium will provide CNES with a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) data service thro
Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 27, 2023
Launched in 1977, the Voyager 2 spacecraft is more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth, using five science instruments to study interstellar space. To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the missio
Paris (AFP) April 26, 2023
Astronomers said Wednesday that for the first time they have confirmed what ignites quasars, the brightest and most powerful objects in the universe, which put galaxies in their "death throes".
These celestial behemoths form when two galaxies smash into each other, the astronomers said, warning that this could be the Milky Way's fate in a few billion years.
Quasars are one of the most ex
Singapore (SPX) Apr 26, 2023
A microsatellite for maritime communications developed by the Satellite Technology And Research Centre (STAR) under the National University of Singapore's College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE), and A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), has been successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikotta, India, on Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 4.50pm (Singapore time).
Green Bank WV (SPX) Apr 27, 2023
"Previously we had seen both the black hole and the jet in separate images, but now we have taken a panoramic picture of the black hole together with its jet at a new wavelength", says Ru-Sen Lu, from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and leader of a Max Planck Research Group at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The surrounding material is thought to fall into the black hole in a process know
Tokyo (AFP) April 26, 2023
Japanese start-up ispace conceded Wednesday its ambitious attempt to become the first private company to land on the Moon had failed but pledged to move ahead with new missions.
The unmanned Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander had been scheduled to arrive on the Moon's surface overnight but communications were lost during its descent and had still not been reestablished 25 minutes after the scheduled
Buenos Aires (AFP) April 26, 2023
Argentina will pay for Chinese imports in yuan instead of US dollars in order to preserve its dwindling foreign reserves, Economy Minister Sergio Massa said on Wednesday.
The South American country will be able to "program a volume of imports in yuan worth (the equivalent of) more than $1 billion from next month," Massa said at a meeting in Buenos Aires with China's ambassador Zou Xiaoli.
Melbourne, Australia (SPX) Apr 27, 2023
Smartphones could one day become portable quantum sensors thanks to a new chip-scale approach that uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) to image magnetic fields.
Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science at UNSW Sydney have demonstrated that OLEDs, a type of semiconductor material commonly found in flat-screen televisions, smartphone screens and other digital d
London (AFP) April 26, 2023
British electricity generation firm Drax said Wednesday that regulator Ofgem has ordered a probe to verify its environmental claims of using sustainably sourced wood to burn at its power plants.
The group confirmed a report in the Financial Times, which said Ofgem was examining BBC claims over wood procured from Canada, to assess whether Drax complied with UK biomass sustainability rules tha
The Hague (AFP) April 26, 2023
The Netherlands unveiled a 28-billion-euro package Wednesday with a raft of measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combatting climate change, including cleaner energy and putting more electric cars on the road.
Dutch Climate and Energy Minister Rob Jetten, who announced the package at a press conference in The Hague, said the plan would realise government's aim to reduce car
Boston MA (SPX) Apr 26, 2023
Getting vaccines to people who need them isn't always easy. Many vaccines require cold storage, making it difficult to ship them to remote areas that don't have the necessary infrastructure.
MIT researchers have come up with a possible solution to this problem: a mobile vaccine printer that could be scaled up to produce hundreds of vaccine doses in a day. This kind of printer, which can fi
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 26, 2023
Tsunamis are incredibly destructive waves that can destroy coastal infrastructure and cause loss of life. Early warnings for such natural disasters are difficult because the risk of a tsunami is highly dependent on the features of the underwater earthquake that triggers it.
In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and Cardiff Unive
London (AFP) April 25, 2023
Britain on Tuesday warned China against any attack on Taiwan, telling Beijing it risked triggering domestic and global turmoil if it failed to uphold its international obligations.
In a set-piece foreign policy speech, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly restated that London wants to see a "peaceful settlement" to sovereignty claims.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has v
Boston MA (SPX) Apr 27, 2023
When manipulating an arcade claw, a player can plan all she wants. But once she presses the joystick button, it's a game of wait-and-see. If the claw misses its target, she'll have to start from scratch for another chance at a prize.
The slow and deliberate approach of the arcade claw is similar to state-of-the-art pick-and-place robots, which use high-level planners to process visual imag
Stuttgart, Germany (SPX) Apr 26, 2023
Most of the world is covered in oceans, which are unfortunately highly polluted. One of the strategies to combat the mounds of waste found in these very sensitive ecosystems - especially around coral reefs - is to employ robots to master the cleanup. However, existing underwater robots are mostly bulky with rigid bodies, unable to explore and sample in complex and unstructured environments, and
Berlin (AFP) April 26, 2023
Germany's economy minister said Wednesday Europe's largest economy must not lose out from the sale of a heat pump maker to a US rival, as competition in the sector intensifies.
US group Carrier Global said Tuesday it had agreed to purchase German group Viessmann's core climate business for $12 billion (10.9 billion euros).
The purchase of the German business was a "game-changing opportun
Georgetown, Guyana (AFP) April 26, 2023
Guyana has approved a more than $12 billion investment proposal by a US and Chinese consortium seeking to develop an offshore oil field, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said Wednesday.
The consortium is led by ExxonMobil, and includes the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Hess Corporation, another American company.
The investment plan was approved "after vigorous analysis by exte
Thursday 27th April 2023, 7:50pm at PointsBet Stadium.
Newcastle could replicate Leeds' masterstroke by snapping up a bargain of their own during the summer transfer window.