Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

December 11, 2015

Zooming in on Pluto's Pattern of Pits
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 11, 2015
On July 14 the telescopic camera on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft took the highest resolution images ever obtained of the intricate pattern of "pits" across a section of Pluto's prominent heart-shaped region, informally named Tombaugh Regio. Mission scientists believe these mysterious indentations may form through a combination of ice fracturing and evaporation. The scarcity of overlying impact craters in this area also leads scientists to conclude that these pits - typically hundreds of ya ... read more

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Dwarf planet Ceres: water vapor in Occator crater When the Sun shines into the Occator crater on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, a kind of thin haze appears above its brightest spot. This can be seen in images taken by the camera system aboa ... more		German physicists see landmark in nuclear fusion quest Scientists in Germany said Thursday they had reached a milestone in a quest to derive energy from nuclear fusion, billed as a potentially limitless, safe and cheap source. ... more		Pluto's close-up, now in color This enhanced color mosaic combines some of the sharpest views of Pluto that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft obtained during its July 14 flyby. The pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Hori ... more
				New clues to Ceres' bright spots and origins Ceres reveals some of its well-kept secrets in two new studies in the journal Nature, thanks to data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. They include highly anticipated insights about mysterious bright fea ... more		No extraterrestrial laser pulses detected from KIC 8462852 The anomalous star KIC 8462852 has baffled astronomers with its erratic dimming, causing some to speculate that it's orbited by a massive structure built by an extraterrestrial civilization. To help ... more

Computing with time travel Why send a message back in time, but lock it so that no one can ever read the contents? Because it may be the key to solving currently intractable problems. That's the claim of an international coll ... more		China launches new communication satellite China on Thursday morning put a new communication satellite into orbit from the southwestern Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The "ChinaSat 1C" satellite was launched at 0:46 a.m. and carried ... more		U.S. defense in free fall U.S. and Saudis conduct Middle East's largest counter-drone exercise Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact		XPRIZE verifies moon express launch contract, kicking off new space race Moon Express has received official verification of their launch contract from XPRIZE as part of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, a global competition for privately funded teams to land an unmanned spac ... more
				Student helps discover new planet, calculates frequency of Jupiter-like planets High school senior Dominick Rowan of Armonk, New York, is making discoveries about other worlds. Working with University of Texas at Austin astronomer Stefano Meschiari, Rowan has helped to find a J ... more		Robot adds new twist to NIST antenna measurements and calibrations The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been pioneering antenna measurement methods for decades, but a new robot may be the ultimate innovation, extending measurements to highe ... more

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Twin civilisations? How life on an exoplanet could spread to its neighbour Imagine two nearby exoplanets orbiting the same sun, each with its own indigenous civilisation. They're going through history either as companionable neighbours or deadly rivals. This is a familiar ... more		Prometheus up close about Saturn NASA's Cassini spacecraft spied details on the pockmarked surface of Saturn's moon Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) during a moderately close flyby on Dec. 6, 2015. This is one of Cass ... more		Fossil fuels harm health from 'cradle to grave': report Trash, mulch and security: All jobs for troops in Washington Rising oceans to threaten 1.5 million Australians by 2050: report		New Visualization of Space Environment at Pluto This video shows a simulation of the space environment all the way out to Pluto in the months surrounding New Horizons' July 2015 flyby. At the time, scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight ... more
Robot arm simulates close approach of ESA's asteroid mission The final approach to an asteroid has been practised for ESA's proposed Asteroid Impact Mission using a real spacecraft camera mounted on a robot arm. The 2020 AIM mission would find its way a ... more		New US space mining law to spark interplanetary gold rush Flashing some interplanetary gold bling and sipping "space water" might sound far-fetched, but both could soon be reality, thanks to a new US law that legalizes cosmic mining. ... more		Space Debris - A Growth Industry? Early in 2015, an expired military weather satellite, Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Flight 13, exploded in a sun synchronous orbit. The official cause given by the Defense of Depar ... more		Swimming devices could deliver drugs inside the body Engineers at the University of Sheffield have discovered that tiny spherical bead-like devices can be guided by physical structures while swimming inside fluids. This opens up a wealth of future pos ... more

	New Horizons' catches a wandering Kuiper Belt Object not far off NASA's New Horizons spacecraft recently took the closest images ever of a distant Kuiper Belt object - demonstrating its ability to observe numerous such bodies over the next several years if NASA a ... more		UW roboticists learn to teach robots from babies Babies learn about the world by exploring how their bodies move in space, grabbing toys, pushing things off tables and by watching and imitating what adults are doing. But when roboticists want to t ... more

EU to fast-track review of 2035 combustion-engine ban

Norway sovereign wealth fund drops French miner over environmental fears

EU split on 2040 climate goal ahead of UN summit

Peering Through Titan's Haze		Russia's Kanopus-ST Research Satellite Deorbited, Heading to Earth		Mars Mission Team Addressing Vacuum Leak on Key Science Instrument		Pluto surface details revealed in best images yet		British astronaut Tim Peake to run marathon from space
Letter to Mars? Royal Mail works it out for British boy, 5		What kinds of stars form rocky planets		Japan asteroid probe conducts 'Earth swing-by' in space quest		Dawn spiraling in towards Ceres		NASA team discover how water escapes from Saturn

Rotational movies of Pluto and Charon

Half of Kepler's giant exoplanet candidates are false positives

These are the robots you're looking for

Japan shows off disaster-response robots at android fair

New law establishes ownership rights for space minerals

Looking back 3.8 billion years into the root of the 'Tree of Life'

Exiled exoplanet likely kicked out of star's neighborhood

Many Worlds, Subterranean Edition

New detector perfect for asteroid mining, planetary research

European payload selected for ExoMars 2018 surface platform

Cryogenic testing from 1964 to the James Webb Space Telescope

Identifying new sources of turbulence in spherical tokamaks

China's indigenous SatNav performing well after tests

High-tech Barbie stokes privacy fears

A row-bot that loves dirty water

China launches Yaogan-29 remote sensing satellite

Satellite Spectrum Is Central To Future Vision For Global Connectivity

Who owns space

Neptune-size exoplanet around a red dwarf star

ExoMars has historical, practical significance for Russia, Europe

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