Space

Space junk: We don’t know whose rocket is about to hit the moon – that’s a problem

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An old rocket will slam into the far side of the moon on 4 March and no one is accepting ownership of the space junk – similar objects could pose a safety risk for future crewed lunar missions Space 23 February 2022 By Jonathan O’Callaghan A representation of space junk in orbit around Earth ESA/ID&Sense/ONiRiXEL … Read more

European space partnerships with Russia face uncertain future amid Ukraine tension

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Astronauts regularly tout how living aboard the International Space Station tears down barriers. Right now, two Russian cosmonauts and one European astronaut are living in orbit together with four Americans. The seven spaceflyers are enjoying the fruit of international cooperation that dates back to the historic 1975 Cold-War era docking between the U.S. Apollo and … Read more

Hubble telescope spots a ‘Space Triangle’ galaxy crash spawning new stars

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A head-on collision between galaxies has created a vast, cosmic triangle in deep space glittering with star formation in a new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The new photo, which NASA released Tuesday (Feb. 22), shows a pair of colliding galaxies known as called Arp 143 arranged in a what scientists described as … Read more

The European Space Agency wants to be able to launch its own astronauts

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The European Space Agency (ESA) is pushing for its members to back a program to allow it to independently send astronauts to space and set ambitious, long-term human exploration goals. While Europeans have been flying to space since the 1970s, only three countries — the Soviet Union (now Russia), the United States and China — … Read more

The Mysterious Origins of King Tutankhamen’s Space Rock Dagger Just Got Clearer

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You may already know the legend of King Tutankhamen’s space dagger – an iron weapon forged from the rock of meteorites, and entombed with the ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Now a new study has revealed more details about this most fascinating and mysterious of artifacts.   A thorough chemical analysis involving high-resolution photography and X-rays has … Read more

Tiny nanosat aims to spot volcanic eruptions from space before they happen

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A new sensor aims to send information about volcanic activity and air quality from a tiny satellite as swiftly as possible, to help speed up the response to eruptions. The Nanosat Atmospheric Chemistry Hyperspectral Observation System, or NACHOS, will fly roughly 300 miles (480 kilometers) in altitude above Earth, scanning the ground using a hyperspectral … Read more

The dark side of online space disinformation | Science

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Theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack spends a lot of time on Twitter. Mack, at North Carolina State University, joined the platform to talk about science under the moniker “Astro Katie” more than a decade ago. Since then, her fun and informative posts about space have earned her nearly half a million followers. Unfortunately, she says, there … Read more

Rogue planets: How wandering bodies in interstellar space ended up on their own

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Joanna Barstow, Ernest Rutherford Fellow, The Open University We now know of almost 5,000 planets outside the solar system. If you were to picture what it would be like on one of these distant worlds, or exoplanets, your mental … Read more