The instrument will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever to be launched into space
The much-delayed launch of the James Webb space telescope will go ahead on 24 December, Nasa and the company overseeing the launch have confirmed.
The project, begun in 1989, was originally expected to deploy the instrument – which will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever to be launched into space – in the early 2000s.
Continue reading...The Parker probe is exploring the corona to help scientists better understand solar outbursts that can interfere with life on Earth
A Nasa spacecraft has officially “touched” the sun, plunging through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona.
Scientists announced the news Tuesday during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Continue reading...Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father, Alan Shepard, made history in 1961 as the first American to travel into space, was among the crew of six
The eldest daughter of pioneering US astronaut Alan Shepard took a joyride to the edge of space aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket on Saturday, 60 years after her late father’s famed suborbital Nasa flight at the dawn of the Space Age.
Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space, was one of six passengers buckled into the cabin of Blue Origin‘s New Shepard spacecraft as it lifted off from a launch site outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.
Continue reading...Yusaku Maezawa to become first space tourist sent to space station by Russia in more than a decade
The Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has said he can barely contain his excitement on the eve of blasting off to the International Space Station in a prelude to a more ambitious trip around the moon with Elon Musk’s SpaceX planned in 2023.
The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector has been training at a space centre outside Moscow before becoming the first space tourist to travel to the ISS in more than a decade.
Continue reading...Billions of dollars over budget and years late, the most expensive, complex telescope to be sent into space will launch next month. What will it learn?
In a few weeks, the most ambitious, costly robot probe ever built, the £6.8bn James Webb space telescope, will be blasted into space on top of a giant European Ariane 5 rocket. The launch of the observatory – which has been plagued by decades of delays and massive cost overruns – promises to be the most nervously watched liftoff in the history of unmanned space exploration.
The observatory – built by Nasa with European and Canadian space agency collaboration – has been designed to revolutionise our study of the early universe and to pinpoint possible life-supporting planets inside our galaxy. However, its planning and construction have taken more than 30 years, with the project suffering cancellation threats, political controversies and further tribulations. In the process, several other scientific projects had to be cancelled to meet the massive, swelling price tag of the observatory. As the journal Nature put it, this is “the telescope that ate astronomy”.
Continue reading...The spacecraft will travel 6.8 million miles through the solar system in an attempt to nudge moonlet Dimorphos a fraction off course
Nasa is preparing to launch its $330m Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) probe, testing the space agency’s ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with kinetic force.
The plan is to crash a robot spacecraft into the moonlet Dimorphos at 15,000 mph and change its path just a fraction. If the mission is successful, it will mean that Nasa and other space agencies could deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth and avert an Armageddon-style impact.
Continue reading...Test drive of planetary defence system aims to provide data on how to deflect asteroids away from Earth
That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth.
Our planet is constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris, but these are usually burned or broken up long before they hit the ground. Once in a while, however, something large enough to do significant damage hits the ground. About 66m years ago, one such collision is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs, ejecting vast amounts of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere, which obscured the sun and caused food chains to collapse. Someday, something similar could call time on humanity’s reign – unless we can find a way to deflect it.
Continue reading...Russia fired missile at its own satellite, generating debris that US says ‘threatens interests of all nations’
The US has accused Russia of “dangerous and irresponsible behavior” after it conducted an anti-satellite weapons test that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to prepare for evacuation.
Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites over the weekend, generating more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of pieces of smaller debris, which the US said “now threaten the interests of all nations”.
Continue reading...Astronauts who will leave the International Space Station on Sunday will have to use diapers on the way home, because of a broken toilet in their SpaceX capsule.
The Nasa astronaut Megan McArthur described the situation as “suboptimal” but manageable. She and three crewmates will spend 20 hours in the capsule, from the time the hatches are closed until a Monday morning splashdown.
Continue reading...The aurora alarms were going off as we grabbed our head torches and headed SOUTH!
Saturn-sized planet candidate has been identified in Whirlpool Galaxy 28m light years away
A possible Saturn-sized planet identified in the distant Whirlpool Galaxy could be the first exoplanet to be detected outside the Milky Way.
The exoplanet candidate appears to be orbiting an X-ray binary – made up of a normal star and a collapsed star or black hole – with its distance from this binary roughly equivalent to the distance of Uranus from the sun.
Continue reading...The Orion capsule will be launched on the Space Launch System, paving the way for the resumption of people to walk on Earth’s satellite again
Nasa has announced plans to launch an uncrewed flight around the Moon in February 2022, paving the way for astronauts to once again set foot on Earth’s satellite.
The US space agency said on Friday that it was in the final phase of testing to send its Orion capsule on an orbit around the Moon on its Space Launch System rocket.
Continue reading...Dame Joan Collins and Brian Cox unimpressed by historic trip, saying ‘let’s take care of this planet first’
The Star Trek actor William Shatner’s recent historic space flight saw him boldly go where some fellow actors refuse to follow, as the nonagenarian was labelled a “fool” for taking part in his record-breaking jaunt.
Dame Joan Collins, who once appeared in an episode of the science fiction series, and the Succession star Brian Cox, are both unimpressed by Shatner, at 90, becoming the oldest person to travel into space when earlier this month he flew in a rocket built by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Continue reading...President hails ‘excellent’ test, as rocket gets high enough, but fails to put dummy payload into orbit
South Korea’s first domestically produced space rocket reached its desired altitude but failed to deliver a dummy payload into orbit in its first test launch.
The South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, still described the test as an “excellent accomplishment” that takes the country a step further in its pursuit of a space launch programme.
Continue reading...Disarmament ambassador casts doubt on ability to defend against technology after reports of test
The United States is “very concerned” about China’s development of hypersonic technology, the US disarmament ambassador, Robert Wood, has said, after reports that Beijing had recently launched a hypersonic missile with a nuclear capacity.
“We are very concerned by what China has been doing on the hypersonic front,” Robert Wood told reporters in Geneva.
Continue reading...A Russian actor and a film director have returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station, shooting scenes for The Challenge, the first movie filmed in orbit. Actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko joined cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky in a Soyuz capsule that landed as scheduled on Kazakhstan’s steppe. The film, if completed on time, will beat a Hollywood production announced by Tom Cruise, Nasa and SpaceX
Continue reading...Actor and director land safely in Kazakhstan after spending 12 days on the International Space Station shooting the first movie in orbit
A Russian actor and a film director have returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station shooting scenes for the first movie in orbit.
Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko landed as scheduled on Kazakhstan’s steppe early on Sunday, according to footage broadcast live by the Russian space agency.
Continue reading...Spacecraft with name inspired by a skeleton and the Beatles, and with lab-grown gems, starts 12-year quest
A Nasa spacecraft named Lucy has rocketed into the sky with diamonds on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.
Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.
Continue reading...Duke of Cambridge says world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead
The Duke of Cambridge has criticised the space race and space tourism, saying the world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead.
Prince William’s comments, in an interview with Newscast on BBC Sounds, will be aired the day after William Shatner made history by becoming the oldest person in space.
Continue reading...A distant gas giant found orbiting a white dwarf star suggests outer planets in our solar system might survive the sun’s demise
A Jupiter-sized planet has been found orbiting a white dwarf star in the Milky Way, providing clues as to what will happen in our solar system when the sun eventually dies.
An international team of astronomers observed the phenomenon, which forms when a star runs out of nuclear fuel to burn, and dies.
Continue reading...