Category Archives: Space

‘Like an alien obelisk’: space debris found in Snowy Mountains paddock believed to be from SpaceX mission

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Astrophysicist Brad Tucker says he often gets calls from people who think they’ve found space junk but the scorched metal found by two farmers is ‘very real’

The Australian Space Agency is investigating space debris found in farmland in the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW, after being notified by an astrophysicist who believes it to be from a SpaceX mission.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University, says he often gets calls from people who believe they’ve found space junk – and they are normally easy to rule out.

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Meteor shower tonight: how and where to watch the Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids showers in Australia and New Zealand this weekend

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New moon will provide ideal viewing conditions for the Piscis Austrinids, Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers this July weekend as cosmic debris from comets enters Earth’s atmosphere, before the Perseid meteor shower peaks in August

The night sky in Australia and New Zealand is set to be illuminated by a trio of meteor showers – the Piscis Austrinids, the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids – that will peak tonight.

The meteor showers coincide with the dark night sky of a new moon on 29 July, providing ideal viewing conditions.

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As more space junk falls to Earth, will China clean up its act?

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Parts of a 23-tonne piece of rocket will come crashing down – somewhere – in the next few days

In the next few days, a 23-tonne piece of rocket will plummet to Earth at about 15,000 miles an hour. Much of it may burn up on re-entry, but a significant amount will not.

It could land as one piece but more probably as many, scattered over an area up to several hundred miles across. Scientists have narrowed down the likely impact zone to within the latitudes of 41 degrees north and 41 degrees south, a region covering much of the US and South America, Africa, the Middle East, most of Asia, and all of Australia except the island of Tasmania.

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US launches environmental study for Thirty Meter telescope on Mauna Kea

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Native Hawaiians have protested the $2.65bn project, saying it will further defile an area already harmed by other observatories

The National Science Foundation will examine the environmental impacts of a proposed optical telescope on the summit of Hawaii’s tallest mountain, a project that has faced strong opposition from Native Hawaiians who consider the area sacred.

Native Hawaiians have long protested the plan to build what would be one of the world’s largest optical telescopes on Mauna Kea, and say the $2.65bn project will further defile an area already harmed by a dozen other observatories.

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US and Russia agree to fly each other’s astronauts to the ISS as tensions thaw

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Nasa and Roscosmos made the announcement of integrated flights shortly after the Russian space program leader was replaced

The US and Russia have struck a deal to fly each other’s astronauts to the International Space Station, an apparent break in tensions between the nations over the war in Ukraine that includes the removal of the Russian space program’s bellicose leader.

Nasa and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos made the announcement of integrated flights Friday, shortly after Moscow said President Vladimir Putin had replaced Dmitry Rogozin with the less confrontational Yuri Borisov, the country’s deputy prime minister and a former minister of defense.

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Origin site of oldest Martian meteorite ‘Black Beauty’ named after WA mining town

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Researchers used AI to pinpoint the meteorite’s crater on Mars’ southern hemisphere, naming it Karratha, a city close to the Pilbara region

Artificial intelligence has helped pinpoint the exact origin site of the oldest Martian meteorite, in a discovery researchers say provides clues about the planet’s early history.

The meteorite, commonly known as “Black Beauty” and officially called Northwest Africa 7034, contains the oldest known Martian igneous material, which is approximately 4.5bn years old. It was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011.

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First images from Nasa’s James Webb space telescope reveal ancient galaxies

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The pictures show elements of the universe as they were 13bn years ago, reshaping our understanding of the cosmos

Nasa has released an image of far-flung galaxies as they were 13bn years ago, the first glimpse from the most powerful telescope ever launched into space, which promises to reshape our understanding of the dawn of the universe.

The small slice of the universe, called SMACS 0723, has been captured in sharp detail by the James Webb space telescope (JWST), showing the light from many different twinkling galaxies, among the oldest in the universe. Joe Biden, who unveiled the image at a White House event, called the moment “historic” and said it provided “a new window into the history of our universe”.

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First of three Nasa rockets to take off from Northern Territory space centre

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Rocket carrying instruments to study the evolution of the universe will be Nasa’s first launch from commercial port outside US

The first of three Nasa rockets scheduled to launch from the Northern Territory is due to take off on Sunday night, carrying precision instruments that will give scientists new data on the evolution of the cosmos.

If all goes according to plan, the rocket will take off from the Arnhem Space Centre on the Dhupuma plateau, near Nhulunbuy, at 10.44pm local time on Sunday.

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Spirals of blue light in New Zealand night sky leave stargazers ‘kind of freaking out’

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Social media abuzz with pictures and theories about formations thought to be from exhaust plume of SpaceX rocket

New Zealand stargazers were left puzzled and awed by strange, spiralling light formations in the night sky on Sunday night.

Around 7.25pm Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island/Rakiura, received a text from a friend: go outside and look at the sky. “As soon as we actually went outside, it was very obvious what it was he was referring to,” Burns said.

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Fastest-growing black hole of past 9bn years may have been found, Australian-led astronomers say

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Scientists spot extremely luminous object powered by supermassive black hole using Coonabarabran telescope

Astronomers believe they have discovered the fastest-growing black hole of the past 9bn years.

The supermassive black hole consumes the equivalent of one Earth every second and has the mass of 3bn suns, they estimate.

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Cambridge University astrophysicist loses space project role amid Brexit row

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Nicholas Walton gives up leadership of €2.8m pan-European research after dispute over Northern Ireland protocol

A Cambridge University astrophysicist studying the Milky Way and hoping to play a major part in the European Space Agency’s (Esa) next big project has been forced to hand over his coordinating role on the scheme after the row over Northern Ireland’s Brexit arrangements put science in the firing line.

Nicholas Walton, a research fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, reluctantly passed his leadership role in the €2.8m pan-European Marie Curie Network research project to a colleague in the Netherlands on Friday.

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Boeing’s Starliner capsule docks for first time with International Space Station

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High-stakes test follows two years of delays in a program designed to give Nasa another vehicle for sending astronauts into orbit

Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule has docked for the first time with the International Space Station, completing a major objective in a crucial test flight into orbit without astronauts aboard.

The rendezvous of the gumdrop-shaped CST-100 Starliner with the orbital research outpost, currently home to a seven-member crew, occurred on Friday nearly 26 hours after the capsule was launched from Cape Canaveral US Space Force Base in Florida.

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‘Holy cow’: scientists successfully grow plants in moon soil for the first time

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Researchers at the University of Florida planted thale cress in harsh lunar dirt returned by Apollo 11 astronauts

For the first time, scientists have grown plants in soil from the moon collected by Nasa’s Apollo astronauts.

Researchers had no idea if anything would sprout in the harsh moon dirt and wanted to see if it could be used to grow food by a new generation of lunar explorers. The results stunned them.

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‘Supersonic ballet’: helicopter briefly catches falling rocket

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Rocket Lab test successfully hooks booster in midair before having to drop it into South Pacific

A space company has briefly managed to catch a falling rocket using a helicopter and a hook in a test described by its chief executive as “something of a supersonic ballet”.

The test was part of Rocket Lab’s attempts to find relatively low-cost ways of recovering rockets for multiple missions to space.

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First all-private astronaut team lifts off for ISS in milestone SpaceX flight

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Crew of four on way to space station in mission hailed by Nasa as putting ‘commercial business up in space’

A SpaceX rocket ship has blasted off carrying the first all-private astronaut team ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS), a flight hailed by industry executives and Nasa as a milestone in the commercialisation of spaceflight.

The team of four selected by Houston-based startup Axiom Space Inc for its debut spaceflight and orbital science mission lifted off on Friday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Russia to halt cooperation over International Space Station

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Director of space agency Roscosmos says partnership will be restored only when ‘illegal sanctions’ are removed

Russia says it will end cooperation with western countries over the International Space Station until sanctions are lifted.

Russia’s space director said on Saturday that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the ISS and other joint space projects would be possible only once western sanctions against Moscow were lifted.

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Peter Dutton says space command needed as some countries ‘see space as a territory for their taking’

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Defence minister argues boundary between competition and conflict ‘increasingly blurred’ after Russia destroyed satellite leaving ‘lethal debris’

Space must not become “a new realm for conflict”, Peter Dutton will say as he launches the Australian defence force’s new space command.

The defence minister will on Tuesday accuse some countries – including Russia – of seeing “space as a territory for their taking”. Dutton will tell a conference in Canberra that Australia will work with allies to push for “a safe, stable and secure space domain”.

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Russia denies ISS cosmonauts wore yellow and blue suits to support Ukraine

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Cosmonaut says colours represent his university, after earlier saying they were chosen because they had a lot of yellow material

Russia has rubbished reports suggesting its cosmonauts wore yellow suits with blue accents to show solidarity with Ukraine.

The three cosmonauts wore the suits, bearing the colours of the Ukrainian flag, when arriving at the International Space Station (ISS), leading to speculation they were a show of support for the country Russia is attacking.

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‘That’s just Dmitry’: Nasa plays down threat to ISS amid Ukraine war

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Head of Russian space agency has made provocative comments about ending cooperation with US but missions are proceeding

The Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, has played down hostile comments by the head of the Russian space agency, after Russia said it would stop supplying rocket engines to US companies.

“That’s just Dmitry Rogozin,” Nelson told the Associated Press. “He spouts off every now and then. But at the end of the day, he’s worked with us.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Russian cosmonauts board ISS wearing colours of Ukraine flag

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Trio appeared to get changed shortly before arrival at space station and one said every crew could choose their own suit

Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, colours that match the Ukrainian flag.

The men were the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.

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