Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

Swift satellite gets ringing endorsement from NASA

An astronomical satellite, of which the University of Leicester and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of University College London are key partners, has received a ringing endorsement from NASA.

May 27, 2014 Read more

Failed dwarf galaxy survives galactic collision thanks to full dark-matter jacket

Like a bullet wrapped in a full metal jacket, a high-velocity hydrogen cloud hurtling toward the Milky Way appears to be encased in a shell of dark matter. Astronomers believe that without this protective shell, the high-velocity cloud known as the Smith Cloud would have disintegrated long ago when it first collided with the disk of our Galaxy.

May 23, 2014 Read more

Gamma rays from the core of active galaxies

Observations show that outbursts occur in the nuclear regions of active galaxies.

May 23, 2014 Read more

First broadband wireless connection - to the moon?!

Researchers will present new details and the first comprehensive overview of the on-orbit performance of their record-shattering laser-based communication uplink between the moon and Earth, which beat the previous record transmission speed last fall by a factor of 4,800. Earlier reports have stated what the team accomplished, but have not provided the details of the implementation.

May 22, 2014 Read more

Very distant galaxy cluster confirmed

The structures and star populations of massive galaxies appear to change as they age, but much about how these galaxies formed and evolved remains mysterious. Many of the oldest and most massive galaxies reside in clusters, enormous structures where numerous galaxies are found concentrated together. Galaxy clusters in the early universe are thought to be key to understanding the lifecycles of old galaxies, but to date astronomers have located only a handful of these rare, distant structures.

May 22, 2014 Read more

The Universe broke its rising 'fever' about 11 billion years ago

An international team, led by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, has found evidence that the Universe broke its rising 'fever' about 11 billion years ago.

May 22, 2014 Read more

Confirmed: Stellar behemoth self-destructs in a Type IIb supernova

For the first time ever, scientists have direct confirmation that a Wolf-Rayet star - sitting 360 million light years away in the Bootes constellation - died in a violent explosion known as a Type IIb supernova.

May 21, 2014 Read more

SWARM is drawing the Earth's magnetic field in 3D

Thanks to a constellation of three satellites, ESA's SWARM mission will track and measure the planet's magnetic forces from its core to its upper atmosphere. Five months after the launch, the satellites are beginning to gather data.

May 21, 2014 Read more

Mars mineral could be linked to microbes

Scientists have discovered that living organisms on Earth were capable of making a mineral that may also be found on Mars.

May 20, 2014 Read more

Analyzing Sun-like stars that eat Earth-like planets (w/video)

Astronomers have developed a model that estimates the effect that ingesting large amounts of the rocky material from which 'terrestrial' planets like Earth, Mars and Venus are made has on a star's chemical composition and has used the model to analyze a pair of twin stars which both have their own planets.

May 20, 2014 Read more

Construction to begin on 2016 NASA Mars lander

NASA and its international partners now have the go-ahead to begin construction on a new Mars lander after it completed a successful Mission Critical Design Review on Friday.

May 20, 2014 Read more

'Smoking gun' evidence for theory that Saturn's collapsing magnetic tail causes auroras

Saturn's auroras are caused by the same phenomenon which leads to dramatic auroral displays on Earth.

May 19, 2014 Read more

SpaceX-3 mission to return Dragon's share of Space Station science

The splashdown of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft on May 18 concludes the company's third contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station, assisting scientists who have investigations returning to Earth complete their analyses.

May 18, 2014 Read more

Plastic, 'wrong-way' dunes arise on Saturn moon Titan

The dunes of Titan tell cosmic tales. A Cornell senior and researchers have narrowed theories on why the hydrocarbon dunes - think plastic - on Saturn's largest moon are oriented in an unexpected direction, a solar system eccentricity that has puzzled space scientists.

May 15, 2014 Read more

Giant telescope tackles orbit and size of exoplanet

Using one of the world's largest telescopes, a Lawrence Livermore team and international collaborators have tracked the orbit of a planet at least four times the size of Jupiter.

May 15, 2014 Read more

Rosetta's target comet is becoming active

The scientific imaging system OSIRIS on board ESA's Rosetta spacecraft witnesses the awakening of the mission's target comet.

May 15, 2014 Read more

The shrinking of Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot - a swirling storm feature larger than Earth - is shrinking. This downsizing, which is changing the shape of the spot from an oval into a circle, has been known about since the 1930s, but now these striking new Hubble Space Telescope images capture the spot at a smaller size than ever before.

May 15, 2014 Read more

Stability lost as supernovae explode

A new model accounting for the loss of stability in supernova explosions sheds some new light on this phenomenon.

May 15, 2014 Read more