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October 15, 2013

SwRI study finds that Pluto satellites' orbital ballet may hint of long-ago collisions
Boulder CO (SPX) Oct 16, 2013
A large impact 4 billion years ago may account for the puzzling orbital configuration among Pluto's five known satellites, according to a new model developed by planetary scientists from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). Starting with Charon, Pluto's nearest and largest moon, each of the successively more distant - and much smaller - moons orbits Pluto according to a steadily increasing factor of Charon's own orbital period. The small satellites, Styx, Nix, Kereberos and Hydra, have orbital per ... read more

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Martian scars Run Deep Ripped apart by tectonic forces, Hebes Chasma and its neighbouring network of canyons bear the scars of the Red Planet's early history. ESA's Mars Express has flown over this region of Mars on numer ... more		Telescopes Large and Small Team Up to Study Triple Asteroid 87 Sylvia Combining observations from the world's largest telescopes with small telescopes used by amateur astronomers, a team of astronomers discovered that the large main-belt asteroid (87) Sylvia has a com ... more		Water discovered in remnants of extrasolar rocky world orbiting white dwarf Astrophysicists have found the first evidence of a water-rich rocky planetary body outside our solar system in its shattered remains orbiting a white dwarf. A new study by scientists at the Un ... more
				Onward and upward as China marks 10 years of manned spaceflight China marks 10 years since it first sent a human into space Tuesday, with its ambitious programme rocketing ahead while rival NASA is largely closed due to the US government shutdown. ... more		Spaceport Colorado and S3 Sign Memorandum of Understanding Spaceport Colorado has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with S3, an aerospace company that designs and engineers suborbital launch systems, formalizing a collaborative re ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Blurring the lines between stars and planets Astronomers including Niall Deacon of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) captured an image of an unusual free-floating planet. As the object has no host star, it can be observed and exami ... more		Kepler Finds First Signs of Other Earths A new analysis of observations from the Kepler spacecraft reveals what may be the first earth-sized planets with earthlike temperatures found orbiting sunlike stars. Until now, Kepler's nearly ... more		EU states to hold talks on 'drone wall' to protect bloc Denmark military intel fails to identify source of drone flights Lithuania eases rules on shooting down drones		US shutdown not to hit Indian Mars mission The partial shutdown of the US government would not affect the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) scheduled for launch Oct 28, the Indian space agency said Saturday. "National Aeronautics Space ... more
				LSU Researchers Discover How Microbes Survive in Freezing Conditions Most microbial researchers grow their cells in petri-dishes to study how they respond to stress and damaging conditions. But, with the support of funding from NASA, researchers in LSU's Department o ... more		Watery asteroid discovered in dying star points to habitable exoplanets Astronomers have found the shattered remains of an asteroid that contained huge amounts of water orbiting an exhausted star, or white dwarf. This suggests that the star GD 61 and its planetary syste ... more

Space Situational Awareness Conference 2013

Solar systems for home and business

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Sunshield preparations bring Gaia closer to deep-space Soyuz launch Payload preparations for Arianespace's next Soyuz launch are progressing well at the Spaceport in French Guiana, where the Gaia billion-star surveyor is receiving its sunshield for in-orbit telescop ... more		ESA's test rover begins exploring Atacama Desert ESA's test rover has been fitted with scientific instruments and made its first tracks in the sands of Chile's Atacama Desert. Meanwhile, team members have explored the area to select a suitable sit ... more		NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space Morocco High Atlas whistle language strives for survival China warns Papua New Guinea over Australian defence deal		Iran plans new monkey space launch Iran is planning to send another live monkey into space within a month, a top space official said in remarks reported by media Sunday. ... more
				US universities make big bets on startups Just before graduating from the University of Michigan, Calvin Schemanski began his start-up. ... more		Ten Years of Chinese Astronauts On October 15, 2003, Chinese Air Force pilot Yang Liwei became the first Chinese citizen to fly in space. His mission on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft lasted roughly one day and featured live television ... more

Sunshield preparations bring Gaia closer to deep-space Soyuz launch

Spaceport Colorado and S3 Sign Memorandum of Understanding

SES-8 Arrives At Cape Canaveral For SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch

ESA's test rover begins exploring Atacama Desert

US shutdown not to hit Indian Mars mission

Martian settlement site to be printed on a printer

NASA's moon landing remembered as a promise of a 'future which never happened'

Russia could build manned lunar base

China unveils its first and unnamed moon rover

Archival Hubble Images Reveal Neptune's "Lost" Inner Moon

SwRI study finds that Pluto satellites' orbital ballet may hint of long-ago collisions

New Horizons - Late in Cruise, and a Binary Ahoy

	Martian settlement site to be printed on a printer The first human settlers on Mars will use a 3D printer to print dwellings, greenhouses and even cutlery, in short, all they will need to live on the Red Planet. In the process, they will use the raw ... more		Archival Hubble Images Reveal Neptune's "Lost" Inner Moon Neptune's tiny, innermost moon, Naiad, has now been seen for the first time since it was discovered by Voyager's cameras in 1989. Dr. Mark Showalter, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institut ... more		Russian booster 'not the culprit in saiga kill' The Kazakh government does not link recent kills of saiga antelopes to the launch activity at the Russian spaceport of Baikonur in central Kazakhstan. According to Kazakhstan's Environment Min ... more		NASA vows to review ban on Chinese astronomers The US space agency Thursday vowed to reconsider the applications of Chinese scientists who were denied access to a NASA conference on security grounds, sparking a boycott by leading American astronomers. ... more

JUNO begins decade-long mission to probe neutrino mysteries

SFL Missions to Deliver Spacecraft Buses for HawkEye 360 RF Signal Detection Expansion

Voyager debuts first space based multi cloud region to advance orbital data processing

Scott Carpenter, second American in orbit, dies at 88		Northrop Grumman's CaMEL to Participate in Robotic Armed Live Fire Demo		Scientists generate first map of clouds on an exoplanet		Methane seeps of the deep sea: A bacteria feast for lithodid crabs		Spacecraft snaps dramatic images of giant scar on the surface of Mars
Space 'graveyard' reveals bits of an Earth-like planet		Diamond 'super-earth' may not be quite as precious		NAU researcher's closer look at Mars reveals new type of impact crater		Mars Hand Lens Imager Sends Ultra High-Res Photo From Mars		NASA's moon landing remembered as a promise of a 'future which never happened'

Search for alien life more complicated than thought, scientists say

NASA ban on Chinese scientists 'inaccurate': lawmaker

Lonely planet without a star discovered wandering our galaxy

China criticises US space agency over 'discrimination'

What's Next, Tiangong?

NASA ban on Chinese scientists 'inaccurate': lawmaker

SES-8 Arrives At Cape Canaveral For SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch

Better robot vision

Himawari and Mitsubishi Electric Complete Facilities For Weather Satellite Ops

Naval Institute History Conference: From Mercury to the Shuttle

World's Largest Solar Sail, Sunjammer, Completes Test

Surprisingly simple scheme for self-assembling robots

Russia could build manned lunar base

Russia to launch first android robot to ISS

Researchers Find that Bright Nearby Double Star Fomalhaut Is Actually a Triple

Making Martian clouds on Earth

Asteroid near-miss reported by Russian scientists

NASA Space Telescopes Find Patchy Clouds On Exotic World

Cassini Finds Ingredient of Household Plastic in Space

NASA Mars mission escapes government shutdown, will launch

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