Tag: Astrophysics
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Astronauts finish repairs to space station cosmic ray detector
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 1:40 p.m. EST (1840 GMT) after end of spacewalk. STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION This view was captured by a helmet camera on one of the astronauts on Saturday’s spacewalk. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now During a fourth spacewalk Saturday to wrap up repairs of the coolant system in a $2…
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New discoveries from NASA’s TESS mission include potentially habitable exoplanet
Artist’s illustration of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized habitable-zone planet discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientists crunching data from NASA’s orbiting TESS planet-hunting observatory have discovered a potentially habitable Earth-sized world circling a star a bit more than 100 light-years from the sun, the first such…
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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites, tests design change for astronomers
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket streaks downrange to the northeast from Cape Canaveral Monday night with 60 Starlink satellites for the company’s planned global Internet network. Credit: SpaceX Sixty more satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink global Internet network streaked into orbit Monday night from Cape Canaveral, including one spacecraft to test an experimental dark coating to address…
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Soyuz launches Italian radar satellite, ESA exoplanet telescope
A Soyuz ST-A rocket lifted off at 0854:20 (3:54:20 a.m. EST) Wednesday from the Guiana Space Center in South America. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG A package of five satellites, including an Italian radar reconnaissance craft and a European Space Agency exoplanet science probe, soared into orbit Wednesday from French Guiana aboard…
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Live coverage: Soyuz launches from French Guiana
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana with the first COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation, or CSG 1, radar surveillance satellite for ASI, the Italian space agency. The European Space Agency’s Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite, or CHEOPS, will fly as a secondary payload on the mission, along with three CubeSats. Text…
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Timeline of Soyuz launch with CSG 1 and CHEOPS
Follow the key events of the Soyuz ST-A rocket’s ascent into orbit from the Guiana Space Center with the first COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation, or CSG 1, radar observation satellite, the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS exoplanet telescope, and three CubeSats. A listing of exact times for the flight’s major events is posted below. Data source: Arianespace…
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Hubble catches best glimpse yet of interstellar interloper
The comet appears in front of a distant background spiral galaxy (2MASX J10500165-0152029) in this Nov. 19 image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy’s bright central core is smeared in the image because Hubble was tracking the comet. Comet Borisov was approximately 203 million miles from Earth in this exposure. Its tail of ejected…
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ESA satellite set for launch to measure sizes of exoplanets
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Dec. 17 after the first launch attempt was scrubbed. Artist’s illustration of the CHEOPS spacecraft observing an exoplanet transiting in front of its parent star. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab A compact exoplanet observatory built in Europe to help astronomers determine the sizes of distant worlds around other stars is scheduled for launch Wednesday from…
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SpaceX to experiment with less-reflective satellite coatings on next Starlink launch
Artist’s concept of a Starlink satellite with its solar array wing unfurled. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX’s next launch of satellites for the company’s Starlink broadband network — planned in the final days of 2019 — will carry one spacecraft with an experimental coating designed to make it less reflective in orbit, a first step in assuaging…
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Earth observation, deep space exploration big winners in new ESA budget
Frédérique Vidal, the French government’s representative and co-chair on the ESA Ministerial Council, ESA director general Jan Wörner, and Manuel Heitor, the Portuguese government’s representative and co-chair on the ESA Ministerial Council. Credit: ESA – S. Corvaja European Space Agency member states on Thursday committed nearly 12.5 billion euros ($13.7 billion) to fund ESA programs…