Tag: Astrophysics
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Kepler telescope recovered from spacecraft emergency
Artist’s concept of the Kepler observatory with survey regions highlighted in the sky. Credit: NASA NASA’s Kepler planet-searching spacecraft is stable and out of emergency mode, officials said Monday, and the observatory is downlinking data to help engineers determine what caused it to suspend science operations last week. “On Sunday morning, the spacecraft reached a…
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Kepler space telescope in emergency mode
Artist’s concept of the Kepler observatory. Credit: NASA Mission controllers are trying to diagnose a problem that put NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting observatory in emergency mode nearly 75 million miles from Earth this week. Circling the sun in an orbit just outside Earth’s, Kepler is in an extended mission searching for worlds around other stars. Engineers…
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U.S. military rules out collision as cause of Hitomi satellite’s woes
The Hitomi satellite is seen Nov. 27 at a press day held before its launch. Credit: JAXA As Japanese ground controllers struggle to restore communications with a tumbling space telescope in orbit, the U.S. military’s space surveillance experts have eliminated one cause for the satellite’s troubles. A military spokesperson told Spaceflight Now in an email…
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Japan’s newest space telescope goes silent
Updated on March 28. Artist’s concept of the Hitomi observatory. Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita Japan has lost contact with the newly-launched Hitomi space telescope, and ground observations indicate the satellite has shed debris and may be tumbling in orbit more than 350 miles above Earth. Ground controllers lost contact with the Hitomi black hole observatory at the…
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Photos: H-2A rocket soars on groundbreaking astronomy mission
Burning a mixture of super-cold liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen and pre-packed solid propellant, Japan’s H-2A rocket vaulted into a deep blue evening sky over the beaches of Tanegashima Island on Wednesday with a satellite that will see the surroundings of black holes better than ever before. The 174-foot-tall (53-meter) rocket blasted off at 0845 GMT…
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NASA moves forward with mission using spy satellite telescope
Artist’s concept of the WFIRST spacecraft. Credit: NASA NASA has formally approved plans — a year ahead of schedule — for an infrared space telescope launching around 2024 to record unique wide-angle views of the cosmos, seeking answers to questions about mysterious dark energy and searching for habitable worlds around other stars, the space agency…
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Black hole observatory launched from Japan
The H-2A rocket flies into the sunset sky over the Tanegashima Space Center at 0845 GMT (3:45 a.m. EST; 5:45 p.m. local time). Credit: JAXA Japan launched a pioneering observatory with X-ray vision Wednesday to peer into the mysterious, light-starved neighborhoods around black holes and study the genesis of galaxies and other cosmic mega-structures billions…
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Live coverage: H-2A rocket delivers on 30th flight
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an H-2A rocket with the Astro-H X-ray astronomy mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
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Launch of Japanese X-ray observatory postponed
Ground crews prepare the Astro-H spacecraft for launch at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Credit: JAXA The Japanese space agency said Thursday the launch of an X-ray astrophysics observatory is postponed from Friday due to a poor weather forecast at the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. The Astro-H mission is awaiting launch aboard…
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Gravitational waves detected, opening new era in astronomy
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s concept of two merging black holes. Credit: NASA A century after Albert Einstein predicted their existence, gravitational waves have finally been detected, tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were generated when two massive black holes, spinning around each other and radiating away gravitational energy, crashed…