Space & Cosmos
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Garbage compactor heading to space station
A prototype trash compactor will be tested on the International Space Station in 2026. Credit: Sierra Space Astronauts on the International Space Station emit a fair amount of trash, fill cargo ships, deorbit, and burn up in the atmosphere. Now, Sierra Space has been awarded a contract to build a trash compactor for the space station. The device compresses space…
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Hubble captures barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures supernova spiral galaxy NGC 1672. Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Fox, L. Jenkins, S. van Dijk, A. Filipenko, J. Li and the PHANGS-HST team, D. de Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA) /Hubble) This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 1672, a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Dorado, 49 million…
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NASA astronauts have not said which of them fell ill after nearly eight months in space.
The SpaceX crew of the Dragon spacecraft, from left, astronaut Alexander Grebenkin, pilot Michael Barratt, commander Matthew Dominick, and mission specialist Janet Epps, on Sunday, February 25, at Kennedy Space in Cape Canaveral, Florida. After arriving at the center, we will gather for a photo. , 2024. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux, File Three NASA astronauts whose long missions on the…
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Powerful new satellites from US and India track Earth’s changing surface
NISAR’s mission will help researchers study how the Earth’s surface changes over time, including the lead-up to the pictured volcanic eruption at Redoubt Mountain in southern Alaska in April 2009. It will help you understand more deeply. Credit: RG McGimsey/AVO/USGS Data from NISAR improves our understanding of phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, and damage to infrastructure. Although we don’t…
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Image: Astronauts take photos of Earth from the International Space Station
Credit: NASA/Don Pettit Earth’s city lights streak through this long-exposure photo taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit on October 24, 2024. The green glow of Earth’s atmosphere is also visible on the horizon. Since the station became operational in November 2000, the crew has produced hundreds of thousands of images like this through crew Earth observations. Their photos of the…
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Investigating how stellar threats affect the habitable zone of exoplanets
This image from the study shows the sky positions of exoplanet-dominated stars projected onto the Mollweide map. The HZS is indicated by a yellow-green circle, and the remaining exoplanet population is represented by a gray circle. The studied sample of 84 HZS located within 220 parsecs of the Sun is represented by a yellow-green cross circle. The three dense HZSs…
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How many more exoplanets are there in known systems?
Consider seven planetary systems. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.00245 One thing we’ve learned in recent decades is that exoplanets are surprisingly common. So far we have confirmed about 6,000 planets, and there is evidence for thousands more. Most of these planets were discovered using the transit method. Although there are other methods. Many stars are known to have multiple planets,…
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Webb confirms long-standing galaxy model
JWST image of the grand design spiral galaxy NGC 628. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Judy Schmidt (CC BY 2.0) Perhaps the greatest tool astronomers have is the ability to go back in time. Because starlight takes time to reach us, astronomers can observe the history of the universe by capturing the light of distant galaxies. This is…
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Chinese space station crew returns after 6 months in orbit
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Three Chinese crew members returned to Earth early Monday after staying at the Tiangong space station for more than six months, state news agency Xinhua said. Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangshou were all in “good health” after landing in the return capsule of the spacecraft Shenzhou at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia,…
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Learn more about supernovae through stardust
A pair of presolar particles from the Murchison meteorite. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory, Department of Energy Most of the diverse elements in the universe are born from supernovae. We are literally made from the dust of long-dead stars and other astrophysical processes. But the details of how that happens are what astronomers are still trying to understand. How do the…
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