Latest Articles
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Aug- 2021 -27 AugustSpace
Scientists puzzling out secrets of Venus’ 30-year-old ‘Giant Dark Cloud’
Lead image: An image of Venus taken by the infrared camera on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency spacecraft Akatsuki on Sept. 5, 2016. (Image credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)) There are many strange things happening on Venus. Among them is a recognizable weather pattern that scientists now realize has persisted in the planet’s atmosphere for at least 30 years. Nicknamed the “Giant Dark Cloud,” scientists first noticed that feature in data gathered by an infrared camera aboard the Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki, which has been orbiting Venus since 2015. The cloud is huge, spanning a third of the planet’s latitude…
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27 AugustSpace
Ripples in Space-Time Detected – Caused by the Death Spiral of a Neutron Star and a Black Hole
Lead image: Image from a MAYA collaboration numerical relativity simulation of an NSBH binary merger, showing the disruption of the Neutron Star. Credit: Deborah Ferguson (UT Austin), Bhavesh Khamesra (Georgia Tech), and Karan Jani (Vanderbilt) First Detection of Gravitational Waves From Black Holes Swallowing Neutron Stars For the first time, scientists have picked up the ripples in space-time caused by the death spiral of a neutron star and a black hole. University of Glasgow researchers played a key role in the international collaboration that made the detection possible. They contributed to the design of the detectors – the most sensitive…
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27 AugustSpace
What Goes Up Must Come Down: Helping Clean Up Space Junk With First-of-Its-Kind Mission Optimizer
Lead image: Illustration of ClearSpace-1, a planned active debris removal mission. Credit: ClearSpace SA Less than a year on from the UK Space Agency committing £1 million in funding to combat space debris, Fujitsu UK has successfully combined quantum-inspired computing and Artificial Intelligence to support the transformation of space debris removal. Fujitsu’s prototype – created in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, Amazon Web Services and Astroscale UK – will improve mission planning so that a single spacecraft can efficiently select which pieces of space debris to remove in one mission, and at a much faster rate than is currently…
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27 AugustNASA
NASA’s $10 Billion James Webb Space Telescope Has Successfully Completed Testing
Lead image: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab After successful completion of its final tests, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is being prepped for shipment to its launch site. Engineering teams have completed Webb’s long-spanning comprehensive testing regimen at Northrop Grumman’s facilities. Webb’s many tests and checkpoints were designed to ensure that the world’s most complex space science observatory will operate as designed once in space. Now that observatory testing has concluded, shipment operations have begun. This includes all the necessary steps to prepare Webb for a safe journey through the Panama…
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26 AugustSpace
A Big Step Forward in the Search for Alien Life: New Class of Exoplanet Very Different to Our Own
Lead image: Astronomers have identified a new class of habitable planets, dubbed ‘Hycean’ planets – hot, ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres – which could represent a big step forward in the search for life elsewhere. Credit: Amanda Smith, University of Cambridge A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System. In the search for life elsewhere, astronomers have mostly looked for planets of a similar size, mass, temperature, and atmospheric composition to Earth. However, astronomers from the…
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