Solar System Scope Docking gives Intelsat telecoms satellite new lease of life Image copyright Northrop Grumman Two American satellites have docked high over the Atlantic in a demonstration of what many commentators expect to be a burgeoning new industry. One of the platforms is an old telecoms spacecraft low on fuel; the other is an auxiliary unit that will now take over all the former's manoeuvring functions. This will allow Intelsat-901 to extend its 19-year mission of relaying TV and other services by another five years. The event has been described as a major accomplishment by the firms involved. Northrop Grumman, which produced the Mission Extension Vehicle-1 that grabbed hold of Intelsat-901, said it was the first time two commercial satellites had come together in this way at an altitude of just over 36,000km. MEV-1 will now push IS-901 to an equatorial position at 27.5 degrees West so it can resume telecoms duties in late March or early April. The docking was autonomous. Image Copyright Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Image copyright NASA Image copyright NASA
NASA Venus Missions - Classroom - BTN If you could hop in a spaceship. AMELIA, REPORTER: Yup, if you just can park over there. And pick any planet in our solar system to be your new home. ALIEN: *Unknown Alien Language* AMELIA: No, that's OK. It probably wouldn't be this one, to be honest. AMELIA: Now this next planet is Venus. Yes, Venus. AMELIA: Yeah, you're right it is actually very close to Earth. You can even spot Venus from Earth because it's the third brightest object in our sky, after the sun and moon, of course. AMELIA: Now, Venus is a lot like Earth. Yeah it is similar in its geology, its size and its distance from the sun. AMELIA: I should warn you it does get a little balmy here. Yeah, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system thanks to its super thick atmosphere that traps in heat and exerts a similar pressure to being about 800 metres underwater. AMELIA: But I'm not sure what you breathe, so you might like it. AMELIA: Oh, and did I mention that when it rains, it rains sulfuric acid? AMELIA: No?
OMG SPACE Stars align for epic space missions Image copyright ESA Two of the most exciting space missions of the 2030s are likely now to be launched within a year of each other. European Space Agency member states are poised to increase the organisation's science budget on Thursday by 10%. This would make it possible to align projects to build a big X-ray telescope and a trio of satellites to sense the collision of gargantuan black holes. It's important they fly together because the insights they'll bring are highly complementary. When black holes merge, they despatch vibrations across the fabric of space-time - so-called gravitational waves. Scientists want the fullest picture possible and the Athena X-ray telescope and the Lisa observatory give them that opportunity. "The idea is that there is light and sound together," said Prof Günther Hasinger, Esa's director of science. Media playback is unsupported on your device Both projects are big technology efforts that will take a decade to prepare. Germany wants Hera; the UK wants Lagrange.
4.6-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Found In The Sahara Desert Is Older Than Earth Itself Kids News Article An ancient volcanic space rock found in the Algerian Sahara, may provide scientists insights into the building blocks of planets. Dubbed Erg Chech 002, or EC 002, the meteorite is believed to be a remnant of a protoplanet dating back 4.6 billion years — about the time when our solar system was being formed. The coarse-grained brown space rock, which is studded with green, yellow-green, and yellow-brown crystals, was found by meteor hunters in Adrar, Algeria, in May 2020. Unlike previously found meteorites, which comprise a kind of volcanic rock called basalt, Erg Chech 002 is composed of andesite. Though common in the Earth's subduction zones — the areas where tectonic plates have collided and one has been pushed beneath the other — andesite has rarely been seen in meteorites. Since no known asteroid resembles EC 002, the researchers suspect that no other remnants are left from these early times. Resources: Newscientist.com, livescience.com, phys.com
As fases da Lúa Aplicación educativa interactiva para entender las fases de la luna. Inluida como recurso educacional en numerosos centros educativos de todo el mundo. La luz del sol, responsable del día y la noche en la tierra, es también la que provoca que se vean las diferentes fases de la luna desde la tierra. La luna gira alrededor de la tierra y alrededor de sí misma en aproximadamente 29 días, por lo que su día dura lo mismo que su mes. Al ser el tiempo de rotación de la luna el mismo que el de su órbita alrededor de la tierra, siempre vemos la misma cara de la luna. Aunque el sol siempre ilumina media luna, las partes iluminadas de la luna van variando según avanzan los días, y no todas ellas son visibles desde la tierra. Las horas en las que podemos ver la luna desde la tierra están relacionadas con la fase en la que ésta se encuentra. El sol y la luna salen hacia el este y se ponen hacia el oeste, más hacia el norte en junio y hacia el sur en diciembre. ¿Y qué ocurre en el ecuador?
ISS crew blast off after long quarantine Image copyright Getty Images Three new crew members have arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) after a launch carried out under tight restrictions due to the coronavirus. The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and Nasa astronaut Chris Cassidy took off from Kazakhstan on Thursday. Pre-launch protocols were changed to prevent the virus being taken to the ISS. Only essential personnel were allowed at the launch site for the blast-off. Support workers wore masks and kept their distance as the crew walked to the bus to take them to the spacecraft. Earlier, Chris Cassidy said not having their families in Baikonur to cheer them on for the launch had affected the crew, but he added: "We understand that the whole world is also impacted by the same crisis. Following the launch Nasa Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted his congratulations. Image Copyright @JimBridenstine @JimBridenstine The ISS has been orbiting the Earth since 1998.
Meteor particles discovered in the Antarctic mountains thought to be 430,000 year old - CBBC Newsround Scott Peterson/PA Wire Meteor particles have been found in Antarctic ice dating from a collision with Earth 430,000 years ago. It's a discovery that could help scientists learn more about asteroid landings and how often they may happen in the future. Researchers found these extra-terrestrial particles on the Sor Rondane mountains in east Antarctica. The discovery shows that there was a "low-altitude meteoric touchdown event", where melted asteroid material 100 meters in size splattered on the surface. The research was published in Science Advances journal and explains how it is "critical to understanding the impact history of Earth and estimating hazardous effects of asteroid impacts". Getty Images The particles were discovered after an exhibition in the Antarctic The impact of the debris was estimated to cover an area of 2,000km, which is bring described as "continental" in size. Did you know that shooting stars aren't actually stars?
Dancing gargantuan black holes perform on cue Media playback is unsupported on your device Astronomers have been able to test key consequences of Einstein's theories by studying the way a couple of black holes move around each other. One of these objects is a true colossus - a hole weighing 18 billion times the mass of our Sun; the other not quite so big at "only" 150 million Sun masses. Scientists managed to predict their interactions very precisely. They did so by including their warping effects on space-time and by assuming the larger hole had a smooth "surface". The black hole pairing, known as OJ 287, exists about 3.5 billion light-years from Earth. Scientists have long recognised a sudden brightening from this system that occurs twice every 12 years. The best explanation for this extraordinary behaviour is that the smaller object is routinely crashing through a disc of gas and dust that's accreting on to its larger companion, heating the inspiraling material to extremely high temperatures in the process. Image copyright NASA
University of Southern Queensland team helps NASA discover four young planets Astronomers* have found four new exoplanets*, worlds beyond our solar system, orbiting* a pair of related young stars named TOI 2076 and TOI 1807. These two distant stars and their “teenage” planets may help unlock one of the great mysteries of the universe – how planetary systems, including our own, evolved*. NASA announced the discovery of the four new planets on July 13, with the finding confirmed by an international team of astrophysicists including the University of Southern Queensland’s (USQ) Dr George Zhou. Dr Zhou told Australia’s ABC that the young planets are like “toddlers” and that the two stars are also “very active”. “They are all young, really energetic. The astronomy team believes the stars are too far apart to be orbiting each other, but their shared motion suggests they are related, likely born from the same cloud of gas. “The stars produce perhaps 10 times more UV light than they will when they reach (our Sun’s) age,” Dr Zhou said in a written statement. 2.
Pentagon releases UFO videos for the record Media playback is unsupported on your device The US Department of Defense has released three declassified videos of "unexplained aerial phenomena". The Pentagon said it wanted to "clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real". The videos had already been leaked in 2007 and 2017. Two were published by the New York Times, while the third was leaked by an organisation co-founded by former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge. After they were first leaked, some people claimed the videos showed alien unidentified flying objects (UFOs). What's in the videos? According to the New York Times, a clip from 2004 was filmed by two navy fighter pilots and shows a round object hovering above the water, about 100 miles (160 km) out into the Pacific Ocean. Two other videos filmed in 2015 show objects moving through the air, one of which is spinning. The fascination with the unexplained never goes away. Media playback is unsupported on your device
How Pluto lost its place as a planet It was 15 years ago this month that former member of the solar system Pluto was kicked out of the club and downgraded to dwarf planet status. And a lot of the world is still pretty upset about it. But Dr Mike Brown, the man credited with lowering Pluto’s status, stands firm. Indeed, on social media he even calls himself “PlutoKiller”. Enough said. But why was Pluto kicked out of the solar system anyway? The discovery of Pluto was announced with much excitement back on February 18, 1930. It was a time of intense planet hunting. And the possibility of a ninth planet in our own solar system – known as Planet X – was the most sought-after prize. The Lowell Observatory had been on the lookout for the elusive planet since at least 1909, with founder Percival Lowell dying empty-handed in 1916. But Lowell had actually bagged the prize – he just didn’t realise it. “I looked in (the telescope) and I spied it almost immediately, and a tremendous thrill came over me and I almost shook,” he later said.
James Webb Space Telescope comes together Image copyright NASA/Chris Gunn The successor to the Hubble observatory has reached a key milestone in its construction. All the elements that make up the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been brought together for the first time. It sets the stage for some critical tests that will hopefully lead to a launch to orbit sometime in 2021. JWST will use a colossal mirror and state-of-the-art instruments to try to see the glow from the very first stars to shine in the Universe. It will also have the power to resolve the atmospheres of many of the new planets now being discovered beyond our Solar System, and to analyse their atmospheres for the potential for life. The telescope is a joint endeavour of the American (Nasa), European (Esa) and Canadian (CSA) space agencies. These three segments have finally been bolted together at a Los Angeles factory facility belonging to the prime contractor, Northrop Grumman. That cycle of testing continues now that the three major segments are connected.