Tag • #space

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India, a growing space power, is forging closer ties with NASA

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 6 July, 2023

Taranjit Sandhu, India's ambassador to the United States, signs the Artemis Accords in Washington on June 21. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson looks on from across the table.

Enlarge / Taranjit Sandhu, India's ambassador to the United States, signs the Artemis Accords in Washington on June 21. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson looks on from across the table. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls )

When India’s ambassador to the US signed up his country to the Artemis Accords last month, it signaled the world’s most populous country—with a growing prowess in spaceflight—could be turning toward the United States as a partner in space exploration.

India became the 27th country to sign the Artemis Accords, a non-binding set of principles among like-minded nations guiding a vision for peaceful and transparent exploration of space. The accords cover the international registration of human-made space objects, the open release of scientific data, and an agreement for nations not to claim territory on the Moon or other planetary bodies, among other tenets.

The Artemis Accords started under the Trump administration , an effort spearheaded by former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Mike Gold, an attorney and longtime space industry official. Bill Nelson, the NASA chief under President Biden, has embraced the accords. He said the principles are “just common sense.”

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‘Look back and marvel’: how will today’s science be viewed in 2123?

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 4 July, 2023

As the Royal Society’s Summer Science exhibition opens we ask four experts for their predictions

Virtual reality and a ‘snail fossil’ meet in clash of old and new

As the Royal Society launches its Summer Science exhibition , including a display of what was cutting-edge science in 1923, we ask experts what the world will make of today’s research 100 years from now.

Prof Steve Brusatte , vertebrate palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh

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The buck full supermoon from around the world – in pictures

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 4 July, 2023

July’s supermoon, known as a buck moon because of its closeness to Earth, has lit up the world’s skies from Britain to Argentina. It is 5.8% bigger and 12.8% brighter than an ordinary full moon and is expected to appear for roughly three days, according to Nasa

Buck full supermoon illuminates skies around the world – video

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Astronomers observe time dilation in early universe

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 3 July, 2023

Events appear to unfold five times slower when universe was a tenth of its present age, in effect predicted by Einstein

Astronomers have watched the distant universe running in extreme slow motion, marking the first time that the weird effect predicted by Einstein more than a century ago has been observed in the early cosmos.

The scientists found that events appeared to unfold five times slower when the universe was a mere 1bn years old, or about a tenth of its present age, because of the way the expansion of the universe stretches time.

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Europe’s venerable Ariane 5 rocket faces a bittersweet ending on Tuesday

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 3 July, 2023

Enlarge / The Ariane 5 has been a workhorse since 1996 for the European Space Agency. (credit: ESA/Arianespace)

The Ariane 5 rocket has had a long run, with nearly three decades of service launching satellites and spacecraft. Over that time, the iconic rocket, with a liquid hydrogen-fueled core stage and solid rocket boosters, has come to symbolize Europe's guaranteed access to space.

But now, the road is coming to an end for the Ariane 5. As soon as Tuesday evening, the final Ariane 5 rocket will lift off from Kourou, French Guiana, carrying a French military communications satellite and a German communications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit. A 90-minute launch window opens at 5:30 pm ET (21:30 UTC). The launch will be webcast on ESA TV .

And after this? Europe's space agency faces some difficult questions.

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Euclid telescope lifts off in search of the secrets of dark universe

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 1 July, 2023

European Space Agency mission launches on SpaceX rocket from Florida to shed light on dark energy and dark matter

A European-built orbital satellite was launched into space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on dark energy and dark matter, the mysterious cosmic forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.

The Euclid telescope, named for the ancient Greek mathematician known as the “father of geometry”, was carried in the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which blasted off about 11am EDT (1500 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force station. A live stream of the liftoff was shown on Nasa TV.

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SpaceX launches groundbreaking European dark energy mission

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 1 July, 2023 • 1 minute

Enlarge / SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket soars through the sky over Cape Canaveral with Europe's Euclid space telescope. (credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica)

A European Space Agency telescope launched Saturday on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida to begin a $1.5 billion mission seeking to answer fundamental questions about the unseen forces driving the expansion of the Universe. The Euclid telescope, named for the ancient Greek mathematician, will observe billions of galaxies during its six-year survey of the sky, measuring their shapes and positions going back 10 billion years, more than 70 percent of cosmic history.

Led by the European Space Agency, the Euclid mission has the ambitious goal of helping astronomers and cosmologists learn about the properties and influence of dark matter and dark energy , which are thought to make up about 95 percent of the Universe. The rest of the cosmos is made of regular atoms and molecules that we can see and touch.

Stumbling in the dark

“To highlight the challenge we face, I would like to give the analogy: It’s very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there’s no cat,” said Henk Hoekstra, a professor and cosmologist at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. “That’s a little bit of the situation we find ourselves in because we have these observations … But we lack a good theory. So far, nobody has come up with a good explanation for dark matter or dark energy.”

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Japanese firm’s pioneering moon landing fails

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 25 April, 2023

Ispace loses communication with Hakuto-R lunar lander, ending a mission that began more than four months ago

A Japanese startup attempting the first private landing on the moon has lost communication with its spacecraft and said that it assumes the lunar mission had failed.

Ispace said that it could not establish communication with the uncrewed Hakuto-R lunar lander after its expected landing time, a frustrating end to a mission that began with a launch from the US more than four months ago.

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches test flight for rocket that could bring people to Mars

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 20 April, 2023

Starship is largest and most powerful rocket ever built and is designed to eventually carry 100 astronauts

The largest and most powerful rocket ever built has blasted off from Texas and thundered towards space in a test flight that its makers, SpaceX, hope will be the first step on a human journey to Mars.

After a cancelled launch earlier this week due to a pressurisation issue, the 120-metre Starship rocket system took off at 8:33 am local time (2:33 pm in the UK) on Thursday.