Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

January 29, 2015

Smaller Gas Giants Could Support Life
Seattle WA (SPX) Jan 29, 2015
Two phenomena known to inhibit the potential habitability of planets - tidal forces and vigorous stellar activity - might instead help chances for life on certain planets orbiting low-mass stars, University of Washington astronomers have found. In a paper published this month in the journal Astrobiology, UW doctoral student Rodrigo Luger and co-author Rory Barnes, research assistant professor, say the two forces could combine to transform uninhabitable "mini-Neptunes" - big planets in outer orb ... read more

Previous Issues

Jan 28

Jan 27

Jan 26

Jan 25

Jan 23

Gully patterns document Martian climate cycles Geologists from Brown University have found new evidence that glacier-like ice deposits advanced and retreated multiple times in the midlatitude regions of Mars in the relatively recent past. ... more		Will NASA's TESS Spacecraft Revolutionize Exoplanet Hunting? NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), planned to be launched in August 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, is designed to discover tho ... more		The two faces of Mars The two hemispheres of Mars are more different from any other planet in our solar system. Non-volcanic, flat lowlands characterise the northern hemisphere, while highlands punctuated by countless vo ... more
				Dawn ahead! NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the sharpest images ever seen of the dwarf planet Ceres. The images were taken 147,000 miles (237,000 kilometers) from Ceres on Jan. 25, and represent a new miles ... more		Kepler astronomers discover ancient star with 5 Earth-size planets Astronomers poring over four years of data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft have discovered a star that's 11.2 billion years old and has at least five Earth-size planets. "We thus show that Earth ... more

Nuclear Decommissioning Conference Europe May 2015

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Surface composition of BL86 studies during Earth flyby Planetary Science Institute researchers Vishnu Reddy and Driss Takir studied the surface composition of near-Earth asteroid 2004 BL86 during its close flyby of Earth early this morning. Remote ... more		Ancient star system has Earth-sized planets forming near start of universe A Sun-like star with orbiting planets, dating back to the dawn of the Galaxy, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers. At 11.2 billion years old it is the oldest star with earth- ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		Something Special in the Air The earliest stages of our Pluto encounter have begun, and New Horizons remains healthy and on course. Already, the SWAP, PEPSSI and SDC instruments are taking daily science data - measuring the cha ... more
				Canadian students design robotic sailboat for Atlantic challenge Crossing the Atlantic Ocean by an unmanned sailing boat? Yes, this is a dream of a group of students from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver in west Canada. They've designed a rob ... more		Vanguard Delivers Advanced EHF Bus Structure Assembly Vanguard Space Technologies has successfully delivered two primary structural bus assemblies for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Program to its customer, Lockheed Martin. Vanguard ... more

Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday The Soyuz-2.1A carrier rocket has been successfully installed at the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is scheduled for launch on October 29, the press service of the Russian ... more		Integral manoeuvres for the future Since 2002, ESA's Integral spacecraft has been observing some of the most violent events in the Universe, including gamma-ray bursts and black holes. While it still has years of life ahead, its fuel ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		More Astronauts for China The next Chinese crewed space mission won't fly until 2016. China is expected to send a crew of three astronauts to the Tiangong 2 space laboratory, which is expected to launch in the same year. ... more
New research re-creates planet formation in the lab New laser-driven compression experiments reproduce the conditions deep inside exotic super-Earths and giant planet cores, and the conditions during the violent birth of Earth-like planets, documenti ... more		Planetary Society announces test flight for LightSail The Planetary Society today announced the first of its LightSail spacecraft will embark on a May 2015 test flight. Funded entirely by private citizens, the solar sail satellite will hitch a ride to ... more		Asteroid That Flew Past Earth Has Moon Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, ... more		Gigantic ring system around J1407b much larger, heavier than Saturn's Astronomers at the Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands, and the University of Rochester, USA, have discovered that the ring system that they see eclipse the very young Sun-like star J1407 is of enor ... more

	NASA craft set to beam home close-ups of Pluto Nine years after leaving Earth, the New Horizons spacecraft is at last drawing close to Pluto and on Sunday was expected to start shooting photographs of the dwarf planet. ... more		Scientists slow down light particles The speed of light is a limit, not a constant - that's what researchers in Glasgow, Scotland, say. A group of them just proved that light can be slowed down, permanently. ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

Scientists befuddled by mysterious white spot on Ceres		NEOWISE: A Yearlong Look at the Sky		Helicopter Could be 'Scout' for Mars Rovers		NASA, Microsoft Collaboration Will Allow Scientists to 'Work on Mars'		Hilltop Panorama Marks Mars Rover's 11th Anniversary
New Horizons ready for planet's beyond beyond		Updated Charts for Asteroid 2004 BL86 Earth Flyby on Jan 26, 2015		Gullies on Vesta Suggest Past Water-Mobilized Flows		Maneuver Delays Messenger's Impact, Extends Orbital Operations		Mysteries in Nili Fossae

Planets outside our solar system more hospitable to life than thought

Inside the big wormhole

Death of a dynamo -- A hard drive from space

Planetary building blocks evolved from porous to hard objects

Telescope To Seek Dust Where Other Earths May Lie

Students to Send Life to Mars Onboard Mars One Lander in 2018

Upgraded Atlas ready to go wireless at next DARPA Robotics Challenge

Artificial intelligence future wows Davos elite

This robot has the mind of a worm

Satellite telemetry tracks bearded vultures

Three nearly Earth-size planets found orbiting nearby star

Maybe two more planets in our Solar System: astronomers

Dawn Delivers New Image of Ceres

Musk donates $10M to keep Artificial Intelligence friendly

Team Working on Strategy to Fix Flash Memory Issue

Three-Planet System Holds Clues to Atmospheres of Earth-size Worlds

Two Earth-sized planets hidden at the edge of our Solar System

New data that fundamental physics constants underlie life-enabling universe

UA-led HiRISE camera spots long-lost space probe on Mars

NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Begins First Stages of Pluto Encounter

Free Newsletters - Space News - Defense Alert - Environment Report - Energy Monitor

Buy Advertising

Media Advertising Kit

Editorial & Other Enquiries

Privacy statement

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.