Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

Discovering the birth of an asteroid trail

Unlike comets, asteroids are not characterised by exhibiting a trail, but there are now ten exceptions. Spanish researchers have observed one of these rare asteroids from the Gran Telescopio Canarias (Spain) and have discovered that something happened around the 1st July 2011 causing its trail to appear: maybe internal rupture or collision with another asteroid.

February 21, 2013 Read more

A cool discovery about out Sun's next-door twin

ESA's Herschel space observatory has detected a cool layer in the atmosphere of Alpha Centauri A, the first time this has been seen in a star beyond our own Sun. The finding is not only important for understanding the Sun's activity, but could also help in the quest to discover proto-planetary systems around other stars.

February 21, 2013 Read more

Mercury may have harbored an ancient magma ocean

Massive lava flows may have given rise to two distinct rock types on Mercury's surface.

February 21, 2013 Read more

A simple view of gravity does not fully explain the distribution of stars in crowded clusters

Gravity remains the dominant force on large astronomical scales, but when it comes to stars in young star clusters the dynamics in these crowded environments cannot be simply explained by the pull of gravity.

February 20, 2013 Read more

Kepler mission discovers tiny planet system

Kepler mission scientists have discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star similar to our sun.

February 20, 2013 Read more

NASA seeks big ideas for small in-space propulsion systems

NASA's Space Technology Program is calling for proposals to develop miniaturized electrospray propulsion technologies that could revolutionize small satellite propulsion systems.

February 20, 2013 Read more

Searching for the solar system's chemical recipe

Berkeley Lab's Chemical Dynamics Beamline points to why isotope ratios in interplanetary dust and meteorites differ from Earth's

February 20, 2013 Read more

Sweeping the dust from a cosmic lobster

New infrared VISTA image of NGC 6357.

February 20, 2013 Read more

Space provides new frontier for new cryocooler coatings

Experts have developed a new coating for space satellite cryocoolers - the specialist devices that regulate their temperature and enable them to function in space.

February 20, 2013 Read more

3-D Observations of the outflow from an active galactic nucleus

Scientists believe that their light source is a very bright gaseous disk surrounding a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Gas streams called "outflows" move outward from the disk and have a substantial influence on surrounding interstellar/intergalactic regions. However, because quasars at large distances look like mere stars, their internal structures are not easy to investigate.

February 20, 2013 Read more

Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system set to soar

The fledgling Beidou satellite navigation system will soon benefit hundreds of millions of users, and provide a cheaper and in some cases better alternative than the Global Positioning System, industry specialists said.

February 20, 2013 Read more

Moon mining a step closer with new lunar soil simulant

Australian researchers have developed a substance that looks and behaves like soil from the moon's surface and can be mixed with polymers to create 'lunar concrete', a finding that may help advance plans to construct safe landing pads and mines on the moon.

February 19, 2013 Read more

SpaceWorks Releases Nano/Microsatellite Market Assessment 2013

SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (SEI) today released an update to its nanosatellite and microsatellite market analysis study. The study presents the latest observations, trends, and projections for the nano/microsatellite market.

February 19, 2013 Read more

NASA seeks university participants for Summer Rocket Workshop

University faculty and students interested in learning how to build scientific experiments for spaceflight are invited to join RockOn 2013 from June 15-20 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

February 19, 2013 Read more

Higgs data indicates finite life of universe

Scientists are still sorting out the details of last year's discovery of the Higgs boson particle, but add up the numbers and it's not looking good for the future of the universe, they report.

February 19, 2013 Read more

NASA scrambles for better asteroid detection

NASA, universities and private groups in the US are working on asteroid warning systems that can detect objects from space like the one that struck Russia last week with a blinding flash and mighty boom.

February 18, 2013 Read more

Hunt for distant planets intensifies (w/video)

Aided by technology, scientists are surmounting the challenge of inferring the atmospheric composition of planets that were invisible to humans just a few years ago.

February 18, 2013 Read more

International space station plays host to innovative infectious disease research

Performing sensitive biological experiments is always a delicate affair. Few researchers, however, contend with the challenges faced by Cheryl Nickerson, whose working laboratory aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is located hundreds of miles above the Earth, traveling at some 17,000 miles per hour.

February 18, 2013 Read more