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The fourth European Service Module structure to power astronauts on NASA's Orion spacecraft to the Moon is now complete. The structure is seen here at a Thales Alenia Space site in Turin, Italy.
Space News & Blog Articles
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Hubble telescope spots peculiar dwarf galaxy with really bright neighbor
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a dazzling new view of a busy star birth factory.
Nikon Z7 II review
The Nikon Z7 II is a powerhouse of all-round full-frame mirrorless performance, but it’s especially adept at astrophotography and low light shooting.
Chinese automaker launches nine satellites to aid self-driving cars
A Long March 2C rocket lifts off with nine small satellites to support Geely’s self-driving cars. Credit: CASC
China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group launched the first nine satellites of a planned constellation of 240 spacecraft Thursday, starting the deployment phase of a project intended to provide navigation and inter-vehicle communications for autonomous cars.
China proposes alien planet mission to hunt habitable worlds by scanning wobbling stars
A proposed Chinese mission would look for nearby habitable alien worlds by launching a spacecraft to make ultraprecise measurements of how orbiting planets make a star wobble.
Faint radio glow thousands of light-years wide discovered around closest quasar
By employing a new technique to make it easier to see faint gas next to the brilliant glare of a quasar, astronomers have discovered that the quasar is ionizing vast amounts of gas.
See 5 planets align in the night sky this month, a rare treat!
A "planet parade" will see all five naked-eye worlds line up in their proper orbital order from the sun in Earth's sky this month.
Even if you can’t see Auroras, You Can Sometimes Hear Them. Here’s What They Sound Like
Auroras are some of Earth’s most spectacular natural phenomena. Travelers come from far and wide to see the incredible Northern Lights and wonder at their beauty. Once thought to be magical in nature, most science fans understand that the lights are formed by the solar wind interacting with our magnetosphere. But did you know they also make sounds?
NASA Will Rent Future Spacesuits From Longtime Supplier and Newcomer
NASA has struck deals with two commercial teams to provide the spacesuits destined for use when astronauts return to the moon by as early as 2025 — and there’s an extra twist that might have sounded alien to the Apollo moonwalkers more than a half-century ago. This time, NASA won’t own the suits.
NASA awards contracts for next-generation space and moonsuits
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION
Dark Stars: The First Stars in the Universe Could Have Been Powered by Annihilating Dark Matter
Dark matter doesn’t really do much of anything in the present-day universe. But in the early days of the cosmos there may have been pockets of dark matter with high enough density that they provided a source of heat for newly forming stars. Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of “dark stars.”
NASA picks 2 companies to build spacesuits for astronauts on the moon and in Earth orbit
NASA has selected two companies to make spacesuits for its Artemis moon program and future International Space Station missions.
Compare Sand Dunes Across the Solar System, From Venus to Pluto
One of the most interesting things we can learn from studying the planets and bodies of our Solar System is how much they have in common. Mars has polar ice caps and features that formed in the presence of water. Venus is similar to Earth in size, mass, and composition and may have once been covered in oceans. And countless icy bodies in the Solar System experience volcanism and have active plate tectonics, except with ice and water instead of hot silicate magma. Another thing they have in common, which may surprise you, is sand dunes!
James Webb Space Telescope will release its 1st science-quality images July 12
We now have a date for our first real images from NASA's next-generation observatory.
Groundbreaking sets stage for space shuttle Endeavour launch-like display
It is a sight that gave astronauts a reason to pause, and soon it will be one that the public can see for themselves at the California Science Center: a space shuttle standing poised for launch.
NASA's Mars MAVEN spacecraft spent 3 months on the brink of disaster
In February, one of NASA's Mars spacecraft slipped into a safe mode that nearly ended the mission.
What the Voyager space probes can teach humanity about immortality as they sail for trillions of years
Both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, carry little pieces of humanity in the form of their Golden Records.
Physicists just rewrote a foundational rule for nuclear fusion reactors that could unleash twice the power
Future fusion reactions inside tokamaks could shine even brighter than before, thanks to groundbreaking new research to find the maximum density of the hydrogen plasma fuel that powers them.
Looking ahead to Webb’s first images
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will release its first full-colour images and spectroscopic data on 12 July 2022.
New and improved satellites will help track storms this hurricane season
Atlantic hurricane season begins today (June 1), and several new weather satellites will collect valuable data to improve hurricane forecasting this year.
Euclid gains solar power and protection
Video: 00:02:54
Spacecraft are not so different to humans – whilst the Sun can be a great source of vital energy, both people and machines must also be protected from its harmful effects.
In this video, engineers at Thales Alenia Space in Turin are attaching a combined sunshield and solar panel module to the main body of ESA’s Euclid spacecraft. This process took place on 23 May 2022 and lasted an entire day.
The module has two functions: whilst the solar panels will provide the spacecraft with power, the sunshield will shade the instrument-carrying payload module from the Sun’s intense radiation.
The video also includes interviews with the ESA and Thales Alenia Space Euclid project managers, who tell us more about the importance of the sunshield and Euclid’s ambitious goals.
Euclid is a space telescope designed to explore the dark Universe. It will make a 3D-map of the cosmos (with time as the third dimension) by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky. In doing so, Euclid will tackle some of the most fundamental questions in cosmology – questions like: How did the Universe originate? Why is the Universe expanding at an accelerating rate? What is the nature of dark matter? What is dark energy?
The previous step in Euclid’s journey, taking place on 24 March 2022, involved attaching Euclid’s payload module to its supporting service module. Next up, engineers will add the communications antenna and then Euclid will be complete. Finally, Euclid will be taken to Cannes where the complete spacecraft will be tested to check that it is ready for launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French
