The Sky Tonight

July 20, 2016

Setting a satellite to catch a satellite
Paris (ESA) Jul 12, 2016
The target is set: a large derelict satellite currently silently tumbling its way through low orbit. If all goes to plan, in 2023 it will vanish - and efforts against space debris will have made a giant leap forward. That is the vision underpinning e.Deorbit, intended as the world's first mission to remove a large piece of space junk - if it is given the initial go-ahead by Europe's space ministers at the Agency's Ministerial Council in December. The basic idea is simple: set a satellite to ... read more

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Jul 19

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Jul 13

Precise 3D Map of Galaxies Supports Standard Cosmological Model A team of researchers from the collaboration Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) have presented this week the latest results obtained from the map obtained by the consortium with data collected ... more		Why Galaxies Stop Creating Stars Astronomers have studied 70,000 galaxies across cosmic time to find out why some cease generating stars. The processes that cause galaxies to "quench," (cease star formation) are not well unde ... more		ALMA makes first sighting of water snow line around young star Young stars are often surrounded by dense, rotating discs of gas and dust, known as protoplanetary discs, from which planets are born. The heat from a typical young solar-type star means that the wa ... more
				Gravitational vortex provides new way to study matter close to a black hole ESA's orbiting X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, has proved the existence of a 'gravitational vortex' around a black hole. The discovery, aided by NASA's NuSTAR mission, solves a mystery that has elude ... 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

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

NASA's Kepler Confirms 100+ Exoplanets During Its K2 Mission 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 ha ... more		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		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		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

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

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		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		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		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
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		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		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

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

Hordes of Low-Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula		NASA camera catches moon 'photobombing' Earth		The birth of quantum holography		Scientists generate first direct short-wavelength spin waves		World's smallest hard disk stores data atom by atom
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

Researcher Calls for New Tools in Search for Extraterrestrials

Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate

Space Debris Solutions - Revisited

Physicists discover family of tetraquarks

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

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