Space News from SpaceDaily.com
January 04, 2017
ADVERTISEMENT



TIME AND SPACE
NASA selects mission to study black holes, cosmic x-ray mysteries



Washington DC (SPX) Jan 04, 2017
NASA has selected a science mission that will allow astronomers to explore, for the first time, the hidden details of some of the most extreme and exotic astronomical objects, such as stellar and supermassive black holes, neutron stars and pulsars. Objects such as black holes can heat surrounding gases to more than a million degrees. The high-energy X-ray radiation from this gas can be polarized - vibrating in a particular direction. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission will ... read more

MARSDAILY
3-D images reveal features of Martian polar ice caps
Three-dimensional subsurface images are revealing structures within the Martian polar ice caps, including previously obscured layering, a larger volume of frozen carbon dioxide contained in the sout ... more
ROCKET SCIENCE
Mission contracts secure Commercial Crew operations for coming years
NASA took another big step to ensure reliable crew transportation to the International Space Station into the next decade. The agency's Commercial Crew Program has awarded an additional four crew ro ... more
TECH SPACE
How to 3-D print your own sonic tractor beam
Last year Asier Marzo, then a doctoral student at the Public University of Navarre, helped develop the first single-sided acoustic tractor beam - that is, the first realization of trapping and pulli ... more
EARTH OBSERVATION
Fossil fuel formation: Key to atmosphere's oxygen?
For the development of animals, nothing - with the exception of DNA - may be more important than oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen enables the chemical reactions that animals use to get energy from s ... more
Previous Issues Jan 03 Jan 02 Jan 01 Dec 30 Dec 29
ADVERTISEMENT



ROCKET SCIENCE
NASA testing SLS for transonic behavior
Tucked away in Hampton, Virginia, is a 56-year-old NASA wind tunnel capable of generating winds speeds of up to 900 miles per hour. In its lifetime, the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel has hosted hundreds ... more
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
NASA's Webb Telescope to resume vibration testing in January
Vibration tests are one of the many tests that spacecraft and instruments endure to ensure they are fit for spaceflight. During routine testing of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, an unexpected re ... more
ICE WORLD
Detailed Greenland glacier data released
NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission has released preliminary data on the heights of Greenland coastal glaciers from its first airborne campaign in March 2016. The new data show the d ... more
ROCKET SCIENCE
SpaceX ready to launch again
SpaceX says it has determined the cause of a launchpad explosion that destroyed a satellite in September and is ready to start launches again as early as Sunday. ... more
TECH SPACE
Scientists hope to make concrete tougher by studying its defects
Calcium silicate hydrate, or C-S-H, accounts for the strength of cement and cement-based materials. It is the component of cement paste that holds concrete together. ... more


Smart tech: This year's CES big on artificial intelligence

TECH SPACE
Advance in intense pulsed light sintering opens door to improved electronics manufacturing
Faster production of advanced, flexible electronics is among the potential benefits of a discovery by researchers at Oregon State University's College of Engineering. Taking a deeper look at p ... more
NANO TECH
Nanoscale 'conversations' create complex, multi-layered structures
Building nanomaterials with features spanning just billionths of a meter requires extraordinary precision. Scaling up that construction while increasing complexity presents a significant hurdle to t ... more


Space station battery replacements to begin New Year's Eve
The batteries that store the energy generated by the International Space Station's four solar panel arrays are being replaced. The initial work, which will be executed by the space station's robotic arm Dextre, is scheduled to begin on New Year's Eve. Over the course of two weeks, the space station's 12 older nickel-hydrogen will be replaced by six new lithium-ion power packs, which wer ... more
Launch of Russia's new progress spacecraft set for February 2

Tech show looks beyond 'smart,' to new 'realities'

'Passengers' and the real-life science of deep space travel

SpaceX ready to launch again
SpaceX says it has determined the cause of a launchpad explosion that destroyed a satellite in September and is ready to start launches again as early as Sunday. An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded September 1 in Cape Canaveral, destroying a satellite that Facebook planned to use to beam high-speed internet to Africa. That marked a setback for the California-based private space f ... more
Europe and Russia looking at Space Tug Project

India to develop large scale solid fuel mixer

Mission contracts secure Commercial Crew operations for coming years

Odyssey recovering from precautionary pause in activity
NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has been in service at Mars since October 2001, put itself into safe mode - a protective standby status - on Dec. 26, while remaining in communication with Earth. The Odyssey project team has diagnosed the cause - an uncertainty aboard the spacecraft about its orientation with regard to Earth and the sun - and is restoring the orbiter to full operations. ... more
3-D images reveal features of Martian polar ice caps

Small Troughs Growing on Mars May Become 'Spiders'

All eyes on Trump over Mars

China Plans to Launch 1st Mars Probe by 2020 - State Council Information Office
China is planning to conduct the first orbiting and roving exploration of Mars by 2020, the country's State Council Information Office (SCIO) said Tuesday in a report. "China intends to execute its first Mars exploration operation, and grasp key technologies for orbiting, landing and roving exploration. It plans to launch the first Mars probe by 2020 to carry out orbiting and roving explor ... more
China to expand int'l cooperation on space sciences

China sees rapid development of space science and technology

China Space Plan to Develop "Strength and Size"



Airbus DS and Energia eye new medium-class satellite platform
Europe's largest aerospace group Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) will develop and manufacture an advanced medium-class satellite platform in cooperation with Russia's Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia, head of Airbus DS in Russia Vladimir Terekhov said. "This platform is our latest product created jointly by our industrial cooperation, that is why it does not even hav ... more
OneWeb announces key funding form SoftBank Group and other investors

Space as a Driver for Socio-Economic Sustainable Development

SoftBank delivers first $1 bn of Trump pledge, to space firm

Scientists hope to make concrete tougher by studying its defects
Calcium silicate hydrate, or C-S-H, accounts for the strength of cement and cement-based materials. It is the component of cement paste that holds concrete together. Researchers have struggled to understand the nanostructure of C-S-H, as it is extremely complex. Luckily, tobermorite serves as a naturally occurring crystalline analog. New analysis of tobermorite microstructures suggests ... more
The hidden inferno inside your laser pointer

Advance in intense pulsed light sintering opens door to improved electronics manufacturing

Russian static discharge measure unit to prolong satellite equipment lifespan



The blob can learn and teach
It isn't an animal, a plant, or a fungus. The slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) is a strange, creeping, bloblike organism made up of one giant cell. Though it has no brain, it can learn from experience, as biologists at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (CNRS, Universite Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier) previously demonstrated.1 Now the same team of scientists has gone a step further, pr ... more
Searching a sea of 'noise' to find exoplanets - using only data as a guide

Microlensing Study Suggests Most Common Outer Planets Likely Neptune-mass

Exciting new creatures discovered on ocean floor

Exploring Pluto and the Wild Back Yonder
As 2016 ends, I can't help but point out an interesting symmetry in where the mission has recently been and where we are going. Exactly two years ago we had just taken New Horizons out of cruise hibernation to begin preparations for the Pluto flyby. And exactly two years from now we will be on final approach to our next flyby, which will culminate with a very close approach to a small Kuiper Bel ... more
Juno Captures Jupiter 'Pearl'

Juno Mission Prepares for December 11 Jupiter Flyby

Research Offers Clues About the Timing of Jupiter's Formation



Newly discovered 'Casper' octopod at risk from deep-sea mining
Last spring, researchers made Newly discovered 'Casper' octopod at risk from deep-sea minings with the discovery of what was surely a new species of octopod, crawling along the seafloor at a record-breaking ocean depth of more than 4,000 meters (about 2.5 miles) off Necker Island near Hawaii. The octopod's colorless and squishy appearance immediately inspired the nickname "Casper." Now, a ... more
Zimbabwe water crisis gives rise to backdoor sellers

Damascenes struggle after clashes cut off water

Scientists find genes driving Bahama pupfish specialization

China to offer global satellite navigation service by 2020
China plans to form a BeiDou network consisting of 35 satellites for global navigation services by 2020, said a white paper released by the State Council Information Office on Tuesday. The country plans to start providing basic services to countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-century Maritime Silk Road in 2018, said the document titled "China's Space Activities in 2016." ... more
Austrian cows swap bells from 'hell' for GPS

Russia, China Making Progress in Synchronization of GLONASS, BeiDou Systems

Alpha Defence Company To Make Navigation Satellites For ISRO



China plans probes to far side, poles of Moon
China is planning missions to explore the far side of the Moon and to send robots to explore both lunar poles. Plans to send astronauts to the Moon are also being discussed, according to Wu Yanhua, vice director of the China National Space Administration. Wu told a press conference on Tuesday that work on the Chang'e-5 lunar mission, scheduled to make a soft landing on the Moon and r ... more
Lunar sonic booms

India Inc joins hands to bid for moon mission

TeamIndus signs contract with ISRO for lunar mission

Quadrantid meteor shower to peak this week in North America
A fireworks-type display of Quadrantid meteors will likely peak in North America on Tuesday or Wednesday. Astronomers disagree on the exact peak of the Quadrantid, whose bright fireballs are one of the most vibrant celestial shows of the year. Some say it will be pre-dawn Tuesday and others say late night Tuesday into early Wednesday is the best time to watch. At least some shootings st ... more
NEOWISE mission spies one comet, maybe two

PANIC Lander to Revolutionize Asteroid Research

Ceres Offers Insight Into Prospects For Life in Early Solar System



China launches TanSat to study atmospheric carbon dioxide processes
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the major greenhouse gases, and causes great concern due to the rapid increase in its atmospheric concentrations. China launched its first minisatellite dedicated to the carbon dioxide detection and monitoring at 15:22 UTC on December 22, 2016. The Chinese Carbon Dioxide Observation Satellite (TANSAT) was designed to focus on the global observation of CO2. Fo ... more
Fossil fuel formation: Key to atmosphere's oxygen?

There's a jet stream in our core

Switzerland sees driest December in 150 years

Moore Foundation provides libraries with a millione solar-eclipse viewers
The Space Science Institute was awarded a grant from the Moore Foundation that will provide 1.26 million solar viewing glasses and other resources for 1,500 public libraries across the nation. They will serve as centers for eclipse education and viewing for their communities. The libraries will be selected through a registration process managed by the STAR Library Education Network (STAR_N ... more
Preparing for the August 2017 Total Solar Eclipse

Giving the Sun a brake

Perspectives on magnetic reconnection

Daily Newsletters - Space - Military - Environment - Energy

Russian physicists measure the loss of dark matter since the birth of the universe
Scientists from MIPT, the Institute for Nuclear Research (INR) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Novosibirsk State University (NSU) have discovered that the proportion of unstable particles in the composition of dark matter in the days immediately after the Big Bang was no more than 2%-5%. Their study has been published in Physical Review D. "The discrepancy between the cosmological ... more
Astrophotography as a gateway to science

NASA's Webb Telescope to resume vibration testing in January

Hubble gazes at a cosmic megamaser

ALPHA observes light spectrum of antimatter for first time
In a paper published in the journal Nature, the ALPHA collaboration reports the first ever measurement on the optical spectrum of an antimatter atom. This achievement features technological developments that open up a completely new era in high-precision antimatter research. It is the result of over 20 years of work by the CERN antimatter community. "Using a laser to observe a transition i ... more
Existence of a short-lived tetraneutron predicted

The sound of quantum vacuum

Timekeepers add 'leap second' to world clocks for new year



Subscribe free to our newsletters via your



Buy Advertising Media Advertising Kit Editorial & Other Enquiries Privacy statement
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.