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Getting a glimpse inside the moon![]() Edmonton, Canada (SPX) Dec 21, 2018 New research from University of Alberta physicists provides the first-ever model of our Moon's rotational dynamics, taking into consideration its solid inner core. Their model helps to explain why, as seen from Earth, the Moon appears to wobble on its axis. The answer, said physicist Mathieu Dumberry, lies in the complex geometry of the Moon's orbit, locked in what is known as a Cassini state. "The Moon goes around the Earth, but its orbit is inclined by about five degrees with respect to th ... read more |
Mars Express gets festive: A winter wonderland on MarsParis (ESA) Dec 21, 2018 This image shows what appears to be a large patch of fresh, untrodden snow - a dream for any lover of the holiday season. However, it's a little too distant for a last-minute winter getaway: this fe ... more
Mars 2020 rover to capture sound on the Red PlanetAlleroed, Denmark (SPX) Dec 21, 2018 In February 2021, NASA's Mars 2020 Rover is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet. The spacecraft will have the capability to capture imagery and sound as the Mars 2020 vehicle descends through ... more
Navigating NASA's first mission to the Trojan asteroidsGreenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 21, 2018 In science fiction, explorers can hop in futuristic spaceships and traverse half the galaxy in the blink of a plot hole. However, this sidelines the navigational acrobatics required in order to guar ... more
All About Ultima: New Horizons Flyby Target is Unlike Anything Explored in SpaceLaurel MD (SPX) Dec 27, 2018 NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to fly by a distant "worldlet" 4 billion miles from the Sun in just six days, on New Year's Day 2019. The target, officially designated 2014 MU69, was nicknamed ... more |
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3D photogrammetric evidence for trace fossils at Vera Rubin Ridge, Gale Crater, MarsBuckingham UK (SPX) Dec 24, 2018 On sol 1922 and 1923, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover (Curiosity) mission in Gale Crater, using its microscopic imager (MAHLI) returned over 84 images to Earth of enigmatic metallic dark- ... more
Astrodynamics and the Gravity Measurement Descent OperationTokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 27, 2018 Until now, "astrodynamics" has been one of the less frequently reported operations for Hayabusa2. In space engineering, the movement, attitude, trajectory and overall handling of the flight mechanic ... more
Holiday Asteroid Imaged with NASA RadarPasadena CA (JPL) Dec 24, 2018 The December 2018 close approach by the large, near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 has provided astronomers an outstanding opportunity to obtain detailed radar images of the surface and shape of the obje ... more
Baby Star's Fiery Tantrum Could Create Building Blocks of PlanetsWarwick UK (SPX) Dec 24, 2018 A massive stellar flare on a baby star has been spotted by University of Warwick astronomers, shedding light on the origins of potentially habitable exoplanets. One of the largest ever seen on ... more
ESA sets clock by distant spinning starsParis (ESA) Dec 27, 2018 ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands has begun running a pulsar-based clock. The 'PulChron' system measures the passing of time using millisecond-frequency radio pulses from multiple fast-spinn ... more |
![]() NASA spacecraft hurtles toward historic New Year's flyby
New Horizons Notebook: On Ultima's DoorstepLaurel MD (SPX) Dec 24, 2018 New Horizons carried out its last trajectory correction maneuver on approach to Ultima Thule last week, a short thruster burst to direct the spacecraft closer to its precise flyby aim point just 2,2 ... more |
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Teledyne e2v has provided New Horizons with two specialist image sensorsChelmsford, UK (SPX) Dec 21, 2018 The American space agency's New Horizons probe remains on course for its daring flyby of Ultima Thule between 29th December 2018 and 4th January 2019. When the mission sweeps past the 30km wid ... more
China launches first Hongyun project satelliteBeijing (Sputnik) Dec 24, 2018 China on 22 December successfully launched the first satellite of its Hongyun project, which seeks to create a network of communication satellites on the low Earth orbit in order to provide stable i ... more
First Harris T7 bomb disposal robots sent to British armyWashington (UPI) Dec 26, 2018 The British army accepted the first four of 56 bomb disposal robots it ordered from Harris Corporation, the U.K. government announced. ... more
NASA industry team creates and demonstrates first quantum sensor for satellite gravimetryGreenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 21, 2018 NASA and the Sunnyvale, California-based AOSense, Inc., have successfully built and demonstrated a prototype quantum sensor capable of obtaining highly sensitive and accurate gravity measurements - ... more
Strong interactions produce a dance between light and soundLondon, UK (SPX) Dec 27, 2018 Light and high-frequency acoustic sound waves in a tiny glass structure can strongly couple to one another and perform a dance in step. A team of researchers from Imperial College London, the ... more |
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Over Six Months Without Word From Opportunity Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 24, 2018
Mars atmospheric opacity (tau) over the rover site remains at a storm-free range around 1.0.
No signal from Opportunity has been heard since Sol 5111 (June 10, 2018). Opportunity likely experienced a low-power fault, a mission clock fault and an up-loss timer fault.
Since the loss of signal, the team has been listening for the rover over a broad range of times, frequencies and polari ... more |
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Getting a glimpse inside the moon Edmonton, Canada (SPX) Dec 21, 2018
New research from University of Alberta physicists provides the first-ever model of our Moon's rotational dynamics, taking into consideration its solid inner core. Their model helps to explain why, as seen from Earth, the Moon appears to wobble on its axis.
The answer, said physicist Mathieu Dumberry, lies in the complex geometry of the Moon's orbit, locked in what is known as a Cassini st ... more |
All About Ultima: New Horizons Flyby Target is Unlike Anything Explored in Space Laurel MD (SPX) Dec 27, 2018
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to fly by a distant "worldlet" 4 billion miles from the Sun in just six days, on New Year's Day 2019. The target, officially designated 2014 MU69, was nicknamed "Ultima Thule," a Latin phrase meaning "a place beyond the known world," after a public call for name recommendations. No spacecraft has ever explored such a distant world.
Ultima, as the flyby ... more |
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Baby Star's Fiery Tantrum Could Create Building Blocks of Planets Warwick UK (SPX) Dec 24, 2018
A massive stellar flare on a baby star has been spotted by University of Warwick astronomers, shedding light on the origins of potentially habitable exoplanets.
One of the largest ever seen on a star of its type, the huge explosion of energy and plasma is around 10,000 times bigger than the largest solar flare ever recorded from our own Sun.
The discovery is detailed in a paper for t ... more |
Number of World's Space Launches in 2018 Exceeds 100, Space Industry Source Says Moscow (Sputnik) Dec 27, 2018
In 2018, the number of space launches carried out throughout the world surpassed 100 for the first time since 1990, a source in the Russian rocket and space industry told Sputnik on Wednesday, adding that the space activity activation was explained by the doubling of Chinese space launches.
"A total of 112 space launches have been carried out so far this year. The number of launches per ye ... more |
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China launches first Hongyun project satellite Beijing (Sputnik) Dec 24, 2018
China on 22 December successfully launched the first satellite of its Hongyun project, which seeks to create a network of communication satellites on the low Earth orbit in order to provide stable internet connection to the country's remote regions, the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) said.
The satellite was launched atop the Long March-11 rocket at 07: ... more |
Navigating NASA's first mission to the Trojan asteroids Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 21, 2018
In science fiction, explorers can hop in futuristic spaceships and traverse half the galaxy in the blink of a plot hole. However, this sidelines the navigational acrobatics required in order to guarantee real-life mission success.
In 2021, the feat of navigation that is the Lucy mission will launch. To steer Lucy towards its targets doesn't simply involve programming a map into a spacecraf ... more |
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Radiance Technologies tapped for U.S. Army laser research Washington (UPI) Nov 30, 2018
The U.S. Army is contracting Radiance Technologies for high energy laser lethality research, assessment and support in the amount of $28.2 million.
Work on the contract, announced Thursday by the Department of Defense, will be performed in Huntsville, Ala., and is expected to be completed by November 2023.
It falls under a small business contract under acquisition rules, though R ... more |
Lockheed awarded $3.3B for PAC-3 missiles for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait Washington (UPI) Dec 24, 2018
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract for Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target Advanced Capability-3, or Patriot PAC-3, missiles for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The contract, announced Friday by the Department of Defense, is worth a total of $3.3 billion for production of the missiles, with associated ground support equipment and initial spares of both PAC-3 missiles an ... more |
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NASA Research Reveals Saturn is Losing Its Rings at "Worst-Case-Scenario" Rate Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 18, 2018
New NASA research confirms that Saturn is losing its iconic rings at the maximum rate estimated from Voyager 1 and 2 observations made decades ago. The rings are being pulled into Saturn by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field.
"We estimate that this 'ring rain' drains an amount of water products that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming p ... more |
Illuminating nanoparticle growth with X-rays Upton NY (SPX) Dec 27, 2018
Hydrogen fuel cells are a promising technology for producing clean and renewable energy, but the cost and activity of their cathode materials is a major challenge for commercialization. Many fuel cells require expensive platinum-based catalysts - substances that initiate and speed up chemical reactions - to help convert renewable fuels into electrical energy. To make hydrogen fuel cells commerci ... more |
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New squeezing record at GEO600 gravitational-wave detector Hannover, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2018
The detection of Einstein's gravitational waves relies on highly precise laser measurements of small length changes. The kilometer-size detectors of the international network (GEO600, LIGO, Virgo) are so sensitive that they are fundamentally limited by tiny quantum mechanical effects.
These cause a background noise which overlaps with gravitational-wave signals. This noise is always presen ... more |
Beyond the black hole singularity with loop quantum gravity University Park PA (SPX) Dec 21, 2018
Our first glimpses into the physics that exist near the center of a black hole are being made possible using "loop quantum gravity" - a theory that uses quantum mechanics to extend gravitational physics beyond Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Loop quantum gravity, originated at Penn State and subsequently developed by a large number of scientists worldwide, is opening up a new para ... more |
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First Harris T7 bomb disposal robots sent to British army Washington (UPI) Dec 26, 2018
The British army accepted the first four of 56 bomb disposal robots it ordered from Harris Corporation, the U.K. government announced.
The T7 ground vehicles, manufactured by Florida-based Harris, are equipped with high-definition cameras, data links, an adjustable manipulation arm, and tank-like all-terrain treads. They also employ "haptic feedback," which recreates the sense of the ro ... more |
General Atomics, Raytheon contracted for Reaper drone support Washington (UPI) Dec 24, 2018
General Atomics and Raytheon have each been awarded contracts for support of the MQ-9 Reaper, one for sensors and the other for overall program support, that come to a total of more than $350 million.
The contracts, announced Friday by the Department of Defense, cover separate areas of sustainment for the unmanned aerial system used for surveillance and support of ground troops, though ... more |
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