This scarred and colourful (by martian standards!) landscape shows part of Aonia Terra, an upland region in the southern highlands of Mars. The image was taken by ESA’s Mars Express on 25 April 2022.
Space News & Blog Articles
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Space-enabled 5G links Japan and Europe
Engineers have connected Japan and Europe via space-enabled next-generation 5G telecommunication links. It is the first time that such an intercontinental connection has been established between Europe and Japan.
Cosmic Dawn Ended 1.1 Billion Years After the Big Bang
We’re all familiar with the famous opening of the TV show “The Big Bang Theory”. It’s a song that begins with the verse: “The whole Universe was in a hot dense state…” performed by the BareNakedLadies band. Turns out it’s not just a cute line. The Ladies are right—it describes exactly what was going on with the Universe a long time ago. After the Big Bang, the cosmos was an intensely hot, dense, rapidly expanding soup of plasma. It was also in a cosmic “dark age” because there were no sources of light. It was just… well… dark. And hot.
These Galaxies are Definitely Living in a Simulation
Studying the universe is hard. Really hard. Like insanely, ridiculously hard. Think of the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life, because studying the universe is quite literally exponentially way harder than whatever you came up with. Studying the universe is hard for two reasons: space and time. When we look at an object in the night sky, we’re looking back in time, as it has taken a finite amount of time for the light from that object to reach your eyes. The star Sirius is one of the brightest objects in the night sky and is located approximately 8.6 light-years from Earth. This means that when you look at it, you’re seeing what it looked like 8.6 years ago, as the speed of light is finite at 186,000 miles per second and a light year is the time it takes for light to travel in one year. Now think of something way farther away than Sirius, like the Big Bang, which supposedly took place 13.8 billion years ago. This means when scientists study the Big Bang, they’re attempting to look back in time 13.8 billion years. Even with all our advanced scientific instruments, it’s extremely hard to look back that far in time. It’s so hard that the Hubble Space Telescope has been in space since 1990 and just recently spotted the most distant single star ever detected in outer space at 12.9 billion light-years away. That’s 30 years of scanning the heavens, which is a testament to the vastness of the universe, and hence why studying the universe is hard. Because studying the universe is so hard, scientists often turn to computer simulations, or models, to help speed up the science aspect and ultimately give us a better understanding of how the universe works without waiting 30 years for the next big discovery.
Curiosity Sees Bizarre Spikes on Mars
In August 2012, the Curiosity rover landed in the Gale Crater on Mars and began exploring the surface for indications of past life. The rover made some profound discoveries during that time, including evidence that the crater was once a huge lakebed and detecting multiple methane spikes. The rover has also taken images of several interesting terrain features, many of which went viral after the photos were shared with the public. Time and again, these photos have proven that the tradition of seeing faces or patterns in random objects (aka. pareidolia) is alive and well when it comes to Mars!
Ingenuity has Lost its Sense of Direction, but It’ll Keep on Flying
Things are getting challenging for the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. The latest news from Håvard Grip, its chief pilot, is that the “Little Chopper that Could” has lost its sense of direction thanks to a failed instrument. Never mind that it was designed to make only a few flights, mostly in Mars spring. Or that it’s having a hard time staying warm now that winter is coming. Now, one of its navigation sensors, called an inclinometer, has stopped working. It’s not the end of the world, though. “A nonworking navigation sensor sounds like a big deal – and it is – but it’s not necessarily an end to our flying at Mars,” Grip wrote on the Mars Helicopter blog on June 6. It turns out that the controllers have options.
SpaceX readies Falcon 9 rocket to launch Egyptian communications satellite
The Nilesat 301 communications satellite undergoes a solar array deployment test. Credit: Thales Alenia Space
An Egyptian-owned communications satellite is nestled in the nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for launch Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, heading for an orbital position more than 22,000 miles over the equator.
'The Orville' season 3 premiere sets out to show this sci-fi series is a tour de force
The special and visual effects budgets have certainly increased for season 3 of "The Orville" on Hulu.
'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' episode 5 taps into some classic Trek tropes
Hijinks are all but guaranteed with a classic Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 5 based on the always-entertaining 'body swap' routine.
Wobbly jets of binary star systems may affect chances of hosting life
Because Earth is the only planet known to host life as we know it, researchers have usually focused on planetary systems similar to our own when searching for extraterrestrial life.
Elon Musk says SpaceX won't take Starlink business public for 3 or 4 years: report
Investors eagerly awaiting the initial public offering of SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet business will have to cool their heels for a while.
Juno’s Entire 42nd Flight Past Jupiter in One Amazing Mosaic
On May 23, 2022, the Juno spacecraft made another close pass of Jupiter, with its suite of scientific instruments collecting data and its JunoCam visible light camera snapping photos all the while. This close pass, called a perijove, is the 42nd time the spacecraft has swung past Jupiter since Juno’s arrival in 2016.
China's next crewed spacecraft is ready for potential space station rescue mission
China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts are only just settling in for their six-month mission aboard the country's space station, but Shenzhou 15 is already on standby in case of an emergency in orbit.
Globalstar spare satellite to launch on SpaceX rocket this month
File photo of a Globalstar second-generation satellite. Credit: Thales Alenia Space
A spare satellite for Globalstar’s data relay and messaging constellation will launch from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 rocket later this month, multiple sources said, in a previously-undisclosed mission on SpaceX’s schedule.
The 3 biggest constellations will be on full display this June. Here's how to see them.
June presents a perfect opportunity to spot the three biggest constellations in the sky — Hydra, Virgo and Ursa Major — but you may have to look beyond standard star charts to find the Big Three.
'Top Gun: Maverick' got help from Lockheed Martin engineers to create its hypersonic SR-72 Darkstar plane
Lockheed Martin engineers assist Hollywood to design "Top Gun: Maverick's" Darkstar jet
Dizzy up the telescope: NASA channels 'Space Invaders' in new browser game
Time to get your laser blasters ready again to hunt down aliens — or at least alien galaxies.
This newly discovered neutron star might light the way for a whole new class of stellar object
The discovery of a neutron star emitting unusual radio signals is rewriting our understanding of these unique star systems.
Striking dunes on Mars boast a complex formation history
Scientists are tracing the movement of dust over Martian eons using a high-definition camera from orbit.
Father's Day telescope deal: Save $600 on the Unistellar eVscope eQuinox
You'll have to hurry as the offer ends June 20.
This is the Last Selfie InSight Will Ever Take
Few things in life captivate us more than looking at images from other planets, no matter how dull these images might seem. This is especially true for Mars, as it’s where we’ve sent the most robots to explore its cold and dry surface. The very first image from the surface of Mars in July 1976 was nothing more than the Viking 1 lander’s footpad and some rocks, but no one cared about these mundane details because we were looking at an image from Mars. We were looking at the surface of another world for the first time in human history, and not only were we captivated by it, but we wanted more.
