Category Archives: Space

Life, but not as they knew it: ISS crew return to Earth transformed by Covid-19

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American and Russian crew touch down in Kazakhstan after months on International Space Station

The three-person crew of the International Space Station returned to Earth on Friday morning, arriving back to a world that has been radically transformed by coronavirus in the time they were away.

Space travel is often a journey into the unknown, but for Americans Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan, and Russian Oleg Skripochka, their return to Earth may bring more surprises than the time they spent in orbit. The trio’s landing capsule touched down on the Kazakh steppe in the early hours of the morning.

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Interstellar object ‘Oumuamua believed to be ‘active asteroid’

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Scientists believe cigar-shaped visitor to our solar system is fragment of a larger body

The cigar-shaped interstellar visitor to our solar system known as ‘Oumuamua could be the remnants of a larger body that was torn apart by its host star, according to researchers.

The dark, reddish object that hurtled into our solar system in 2017 and was named after the Hawaiian word for messenger or scout has long puzzled scientists.

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Trump order encourages US to mine the moon

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Executive order says US will oppose any international effort to bar it from removing chunks of moon, Mars or elsewhere in space

The world may be racked by the coronavirus, but Donald Trump has less earthly concerns on his mind, too, after signing an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.

The executive order makes clear that the US doesn’t view space as a “global commons”, opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty.

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Scientists capture image of black hole emitting high-energy jets

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Detailed image taken by Event Horizon Telescope of black hole 5bn light years away

An image of a huge, powerful jet of plasma powered by a supermassive black hole has been captured by researchers in unprecedented detail.

The team say the bright blob on the left of the image is thought to be the disc of gas and dust swirling around the black hole, with the jet of plasma depicted by a stream of less intense red features apparently emanating from it.

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Scientists identify rain of molten iron on distant exoplanet

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Conditions on Wasp-76b in Pisces include temperatures of 2,400C and 10,000mph winds

Wasp-76b is what astronomers call an exoplanet, one that orbits a star outside our solar system. Scientists have discovered that the local weather conditions include 2,400C temperatures, winds in excess of 10,000mph and a steady pelting of iron rain.

The observations of the distant planet’s unusually hostile climate are the first results from a new instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile, which astronomers say will transform our view of worlds far from beyond our own solar system.

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Katherine Johnson, Nasa mathematician portrayed in Hidden Figures, dies at 101

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Johnson overcame racial and gender-based discrimination to become an integral part of Nasa’s work in space exploration

Katherine Johnson, one of the trailblazing African American mathematicians whose story was told in the hit film Hidden Figures, has died, Nasa announced on Monday. She was 101.

Related: How history forgot the black women behind Nasa’s space race

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Christina Koch returns to Earth after record-breaking space mission

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Koch lands in Kazakhstan after 328 days in space, the longest continuous spaceflight by a female astronaut

She would miss the friendship of her crewmates, she said, and of course the spectacular views.

But after 328 days on the International Space Station – the longest continuous spaceflight ever undertaken by a female astronaut – Christina Koch could not deny last week that she was looking forward to experiencing some very simple pleasures back on Earth, including “the feeling of wind on my face”.

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Telescope captures most detailed pictures yet of the sun

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First observations from Inouye telescope bring previously hazy star into sharp focus

The sun’s turbulent surface has been revealed in unprecedented detail in the first observations by the Inouye solar telescope in Hawaii.

The striking images reveal a surprising level of structure hidden within the churning plasma exterior, bringing a previously hazy impression of the sun’s patchwork surface sharply into focus for the first time.

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Trump unveils logo for Starfleet … er, Space Force … and Trekkers take to Twitter

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In a move that would please Gene Roddenberry – or make him ask for royalties – the president showed off a familiar looking symbol

As the impeachment trial of Donald Trump continued in earnest on Friday, the president was boldly unveiling his new logo for the US Space Force.

After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military! pic.twitter.com/TC8pT4yHFT

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Aiming for the stars: how New Zealand’s space industry is causing turbulence

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The once-sleepy Mahia peninsula is now the site of regular rocket launches but a plan to put US spy satellites into space is causing concern

Life on the Mahia peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island used to be quiet: surfing beaches, historical monuments, and good snapper fishing.

Then space came to town.

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Astronomers discover huge gaseous wave holding Milky Way’s newest stars

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‘It’s right up in our face’ – close proximity of stellar nursery to our solar system stuns scientists

Astronomers have discovered a gigantic, undulating wave of dust and gas where newborn stars are forged over a 50 million billion mile stretch of the Milky Way.

The gaseous structure, which holds more mass than 3m suns, runs directly behind our solar system as viewed from the heart of the galaxy, but has eluded observation until now.

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Chandrayaan-3: India unveils fresh $35m attempt to put a rover on the moon

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Space programme seeks to bounce back after 2019 project ended with a crash landing on the lunar surface

India plans to make a fresh attempt at an unmanned mission on the moon this year, the head of the country’s space programme has said, after a 2019 bid ended in a crash landing.

Work was going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to put a rover probe on the moon’s surface, Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Sivan said. “We are targeting the launch for this year but it may spillover to next year,” Sivan said. Indian sources said authorities had set November as a provisional target for launch.

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International Space Station astronauts play with fire for research

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Tests to study behaviour of flames in zero gravity suggest fires could be more dangerous on moon than Earth

Playing with fire can be dangerous and never more so than when confined in a space capsule floating 250 miles above the Earth. But in the past week astronauts onboard the International Space Station have intentionally lit a series of blazes in research designed to study the behaviour of flames in zero gravity.

The scientists behind the experiment, called Confined Combustion, say it will help improve fire safety on the ISS and on future lunar missions by helping predict how a blaze might progress in low gravity conditions.

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Donald Trump launches space force for ‘world’s new war-fighting domain’ – video

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Donald Trump launched the US space force, the first new US military service in more than 70 years. ‘Space is the world’s new war-fighting domain,’ Trump said during a signing ceremony of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that includes the force.

The move is part of a $1.4tn (£1.1tn) government spending package reversing automatic spending cuts to defence and domestic programmes

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Donald Trump officially launches US space force

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US president approves funding for America’s first new military service in 70 years

Donald Trump has launched space force, the first new US military service in more than 70 years.

In signing the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that includes the force, Trump claimed a victory for one of his top national security priorities two days after being impeached by the House of Representatives.

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Boeing Starliner space capsule goes off course on first test flight

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Officials say spacecraft is in stable orbit but problem may delay mission to carry Nasa astronauts

Boeing’s new Starliner capsule ran into trouble and went off course in orbit minutes after blasting off on Friday on its first test flight, a crucial dress rehearsal for next year’s inaugural launch with astronauts.

Initially everything went flawlessly as the Atlas V rocket launched with the Starliner shortly before sunrise. But half an hour into the flight, Boeing reported that the capsule had not got into the position needed to get to the International Space Station.

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Race against time to launch Europe’s troubled mission to Mars

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European Space Agency asks for help from Nasa with ExoMars project as trials fail and cost rises to €1bn

Space engineers are racing against time to fix major faults in the robot probe they plan to send to Mars next year. The complex parachute system that should slow ExoMars – Europe’s largest ever planetary mission – as it plunges into the Martian atmosphere failed catastrophically during recent tests.

As a result, the European Space Agency has called for emergency help from Nasa space engineers to help them save their stricken mission. New parachutes are now being tested at the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and will be subject to high-altitude trials in two or three months.

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Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe beams back first insights from sun’s edge

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Flying closer than any other mission, spacecraft set to unravel the sun’s mysteries

Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe, which has flown closer to the sun than any spacecraft, has beamed back its first observations from the edge of the sun’s scorching atmosphere.

The first tranche of data offers clues to long-standing mysteries, including why the sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona, is hundreds of times hotter than its surface, as well as the precise origins of the solar wind.

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India’s crashed Vikram moon lander spotted on lunar surface

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Nasa satellite sends back images showing wreckage of Chandrayaan-2 mission, with debris found scattered nearly a kilometre away

A Nasa satellite orbiting the moon has found India’s Vikram lander, which crashed on the lunar surface in September, the US space agency said on Monday.

Nasa released an image taken by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that showed the site of the spacecraft’s impact and associated debris field, with parts scattered over almost two dozen locations spanning several kilometres.

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Daring Mars mission to send rocks back to Earth in hunt for past life

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Europe poised to join US in complex plan to find evidence of fossil microbes on red planet

Engineers plan to collect rocks on Mars and bring samples to Earth, in one of the most complex robot space projects envisaged. The scheme, being developed by Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa), will involve robot rovers finding rocks that might contain evidence of past life.

The samples would be blasted into space, intercepted by an unmanned spacecraft, and dropped by parachute in the Utah desert, with the 500g of Martian soil and rock shared with researchers round the world.

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