Space News & Blog Articles

Tune into the SpaceZE News Network to stay updated on industry news from around the world.

Charting sea level from space

Video: 00:12:21

Satellite images of our planet have become essential to our survival, offering a new outlook of our world. With rising seas being one of the biggest threats to society, satellite altimeter missions such as Copernicus Sentinel-6 are essential in monitoring global and regional changes in sea level.

Continue reading

Comet Interceptor approved for construction

ESA’s Comet Interceptor mission to visit a pristine comet or other interstellar object just starting its journey into the inner Solar System has been ‘adopted’ this week; the study phase is complete and, following selection of the spacecraft prime contractor, work will soon begin to build the mission.

The Matrix movies, ranked worst to best

He is the one, two, three, four and five as we look at the the Matrix movies, ranked worst to best.

The Matrix movies in order

Watch The Matrix movies in order, and see just how far the rabbit hole goes.

Watch SpaceX launch a communications satellite, land rocket on ship at sea today

SpaceX will launch a communications satellite and land the returning rocket on a ship at sea on Wednesday (June 8), and you can watch the action live.

Ukrainian startup conducts new tests for engine of 'self-devouring' rocket

Ukrainian rocket company Promin Aerospace, which is currently developing an ultralight, autophagic launch vehicle, has conducted a new series of studies on its unique engine.

Hubble Space Telescope's largest-ever infrared image peers back 10 billion years

The largest near-infrared image of galaxies ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed potential targets for the James Webb Space Telescope.

Mars sleeps with one eye open

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-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.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

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!

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

'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.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

SpaceZE.com