The Sky Tonight

July 19, 2016

NASA's Kepler Confirms 100+ Exoplanets During Its K2 Mission
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 19, 2016
An international team of astronomers has discovered and confirmed a treasure trove of new worlds using NASA's Kepler spacecraft on its K2 mission. Out of 197 initial planet candidates, scientists have confirmed 104 planets outside our solar system. Among the confirmed is a planetary system comprising four promising planets that could be rocky. These four planets, all between 20 and 50 percent larger than Earth by diameter, are orbiting the M dwarf star K2-72, found 181 light-years away in the dire ... read more

Previous Issues

Jul 18

Jul 15

Jul 14

Jul 13

Jul 12

Gemini Observatory Instrumental in Latest Exoplanet Harvest The Gemini North telescope on Hawaii's Maunakea helped verify many of the over 100 new worlds announced in the initial crop of discoveries from the NASA K2 mission, according to Ian Crossfield of th ... more		SSTL and Goonhilly announce partnership and a call for lunar orbit payloads Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd (GES) have announced a new partnership to go beyond Earth's orbit and provide a new model of low cost, high value, space exploration a ... more		Taiwan to make lunar lander for NASA moon-mining mission Taiwan is building a $47 million lunar lander as part of the first ever moon-mining project, officials said Monday. ... more
				NASA's Kepler discovers more than 104 new exoplanets An international team of researchers announced Monday the discovery of 104 new planets outside our solar system, including four that could have Earth-like, rocky surfaces. ... more		Solar Probe Plus Mission Moves into Advanced Development NASA's first mission to "touch" the Sun has passed a critical development milestone that keeps it well on track toward its scheduled summer 2018 launch. Following a successful NASA management ... more

Transition from Operations to Decommissioning by Preparing a Safe, Cost-Effective Shut Down and Waste Management Strategy

Dark Energy Measured with Map of over 1 Million Galaxies A team of hundreds of physicists and astronomers have announced results from the largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies. The team constructed this map to make one of the most precis ... more		Slow Appearance of Sunspots Challenges Theory Solar active regions consist of strongly magnetic sunspots and surrounding regions of more diffuse magnetic field. These regions are the origin of solar activity which controls space weather and cau ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		Surface Composition Determines Planet's Temperature and Habitability In the quest for habitable planets outside our solar system - also known as exoplanets - astronomers are currently focusing on rocky planets that don't look like Earth. These planets orbit so-called ... more
				Warm Jupiters Not as Lonely as Expected After analyzing four years of Kepler space telescope observations, astronomers from the University of Toronto have given us our clearest understanding yet of a class of exoplanets called "warm Jupit ... more		Massive 3D map of faraway galaxies to aid search for dark energy Dark energy - the mysterious force responsible for the expansion of the universe - remains elusive, but researchers hope a new 3D map of distant galaxies will help them finally measure it. ... more

2nd Integrated Air and Missile Defense - Securing the Complex Air Domain: Requirements for Sustainable, Global, and Reliable Solutions to Next Generation Air & Missile Threats - 28-30 September, 2016 | Washington D.C.

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 7-9 - Las Vegas

If life can make it here, it can make it anywhere If the origin of life is common on other worlds, the universe should be a cosmic zoo full of complex multicellular organisms. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University astrobiologist, uses ... more		Behind the scenes of protostellar disk formation For a long time the formation of protostellar disks - a prerequisite to the formation of planetary system around stars - has defied theoretical astrophysicists: In a dense, collapsing cloud of gas a ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		Surprise: Small elliptical galaxy actually a giant disk Astronomers have believed since the 1960s that a galaxy dubbed UGC 1382 was a relatively boring, small elliptical galaxy. Ellipticals are the most common type of galaxy and lack the spiral structure ... more
Hordes of Low-Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula ESO's HAWK-I infrared instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile has been used to peer deeper into the heart of Orion Nebula than ever before. The spectacular picture reveals about ten ti ... more		NASA camera catches moon 'photobombing' Earth For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. "For the ... more		Researcher Calls for New Tools in Search for Extraterrestrials The SETI Institute's Director of Research proposed a broader, multidisciplinary approach to the SETI search, beyond radio and optical modalities, in an article published in the journal Astrobiology. ... more		Weird quantum effects stretch across hundreds of miles In the world of quantum, infinitesimally small particles, weird and often logic-defying behaviors abound. Perhaps the strangest of these is the idea of superposition, in which objects can exist simu ... more

	World's smallest hard disk stores data atom by atom Researchers in the Netherlands have unveiled the world's smallest hard disk. ... more		Physicists discover family of tetraquarks Physicists in the Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences have made science history by confirming the existence of a rare four-quark particle and discovering evidence of three other "exotic ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

Alma finds a swirling, cool jet that reveals a growing, supermassive black hole		Lush Venus? Searing Earth? It could have happened		Physicists collide ultracold atoms to observe key quantum principle		Supercomputers fire lasers to shoot gamma ray beam		Graduate researchers lead exoplanet discoveries
Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View		New Kind of Black Hole Now Firmly Within Observers' Sight		Accelerating research into dark energy		Team Begins Powering up Science Instruments		Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate

Space Debris Solutions - Revisited

Study Explains Why Galaxies Stop Creating Stars

A new look at the galaxy-shaping power of black holes

Chemical trail on Titan may be key to prebiotic conditions

Hitomi Finds Quiet Space in the Heart of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster

Exploring a Frozen Extrasolar World

Zooming In on Why Some Quasars Turn Down the Radio

Teenagers at Keele University Discover Possible New Exoplanet

A surprising planet with three suns

Hubble reveals stellar fireworks in 'skyrocket' galaxy

Discovery of Gravitational Waves - What Comes Next

Researchers Help Explain How Stars Are Born, Cosmic Structures Evolve

Chemical Trail Could Lead To Clues About Life On Titan

Accelerating Research into Dark Energy

Aftermath of Star Being Swallowed by Supermassive Black Hole

ORNL scientists isolate, culture elusive Yellowstone microbe

OrbitOutlook integrates diverse network to help avoid collisions in space

The energy spectrum of particles will help make out black holes

Chance Microlensing Events Probe Galaxy Cores

Elite Team to Consider New Approaches to Asteroid Danger

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.