All articles
-
Science & Discovery
An Ultra-Black Coating Could Save Astronomy From 60,000 Satellites
University of Surrey researchers say coating satellites in Vantablack 310, which reflects just 2% of incoming light, could bring megaconstellation brightness near IAU limits—and it gets its first orbital test next year.
-
Commercial
Germany Bets on an Unproven Rocket: Planet and Isar Aerospace Sign All-German Launch Deal
Planet Labs Germany will fly a Pelican imaging satellite on Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket within a year — a milestone all-German mission riding on a launcher that has yet to reach orbit.
-
Astronomy
TESS Just Mapped Rotation Periods for a Million Nearby Stars
A new TESS-based catalog measures rotation periods for over a million stars within 1,600 light-years, quadrupling the known sample and sharpening the map of young stellar associations.
-
Science & Discovery
X-Ray Light Echoes From Old Gamma-Ray Bursts Show the Milky Way's Arms Are Bigger Than We Thought
By timing X-ray rings that three historic gamma-ray bursts scattered off interstellar dust, astronomers measured purely geometric distances showing the Milky Way's outer spiral arms sit about 10% farther out than previously believed.
-
Astronomy
JWST Spots Methane on a Planet Orbiting a Dead Star — And It's a Preview of Our Own Solar System's Future
JWST has detected methane, haze, and heat in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf — the first atmosphere ever confirmed around a planet circling a dead star.
-
Missions
Robotic Servicer LINK Launches to Rescue NASA's Swift Observatory From Reentry
After three days of delays, a Pegasus XL rocket dropped from a jet over the Pacific deployed Katalyst Space's LINK spacecraft on a mission to grapple and reboost NASA's decaying Swift Observatory — and to close out the Pegasus program for good.
-
Military Space
Victus Haze: How the Space Force Just Proved It Can Hunt Satellites on Hours' Notice
Rocket Lab's Puma launched 16 hours after notice and, guided only by its own sensors, tracked down and photographed True Anomaly's orbiting Jackal-0004 satellite — a rehearsal for spotting adversary spacecraft with almost no warning.
-
Commercial
ULA Flies Its Last Atlas V 551 as Amazon Leo Races an FCC Deployment Deadline
United Launch Alliance closed out the Atlas V 551's 20-year career hauling 29 more Amazon Leo satellites to orbit, just weeks before Amazon's FCC deadline to deploy half its broadband constellation.
-
Astronomy
Chandra, Hubble and Webb Team Up for a 'Red, White and Blue' Universe on America's 250th
To mark America's 250th, NASA fused X-ray, infrared and optical data from Chandra, Webb and Hubble into four patriotic-toned composites — plus sound versions of the cosmos — released June 30 through July 4.
-
Stargazing
Sun Unleashes Surprise G3 Storm on July 4th, Pushing Auroras Into Utah and Nevada
A CME from a June 30 X1.1 flare overperformed its forecast, hitting G3 (Strong) and dragging the aurora as far south as Utah, Colorado and Nevada on Independence Day.
-
Military Space
Space Force Fields 'Meadowlands' Satellite Jammer, Cutting Deployment Gear by Two-Thirds
The Space Force has operationally accepted Meadowlands, an L3Harris-built jammer that shrinks its satellite-warfare kit from 23 cases to seven while matching the anti-satellite push from China and Russia.
-
Science & Discovery
NASA's TESS Spots a Super-Jupiter 40,000 Light-Years Away Using a Trick From Einstein
Astronomers used gravitational microlensing to pull a super-Jupiter called Gaia23bra b out of TESS's archived data — a planet-hunting trick that reaches 260 times farther than the satellite's usual transit method.
Page 16 of 45
