News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Starting Wednesday (Feb. 16), aspiring space tourists can once again book a trip to the final frontier with Virgin Galactic. The company announced Tuesday (Feb. 15) that it will temporarily reopen its waiting list for customers ahead of providing commercial service. The seat deposit is $150,000, and the total ticket price is $450,000. As of … Read more
Footage from China’s space station shows how its large robotic arm can “crawl” along the outside of the spacecraft. The new video from the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) shows the space station’s 33.5-foot-long (10.2 meters) robotic arm rising up from behind the Tianhe module and reaching out to find a docking port in the … Read more
It is the largest planet in the solar system, but just how big is Jupiter? The gas giant is approximately 318 times as massive as Earth, according to planetary scientist Alan Boss. If the mass of all of the other planets in the solar system were combined into one “super planet,” Jupiter would still be … Read more
SpaceX aims to make progress in space and on Earth with its new venture, the Polaris Program. And the team behind it couldn’t be more excited. The Polaris Program is a joint effort involving SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, the tech entrepreneur and billionaire who funded and commanded the Inspiration4 orbital crewed mission to benefit St. … Read more
The billionaire commander of the first “all-civilian” space mission has now filed a new flight plan, underwriting a series of three SpaceX launches designed to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities while also raising funds and awareness for causes here on Earth. Jared Isaacman, the 39-year-old founder of Shift4, an online payment processing company, and the … Read more
The hottest commodity in astronomy these days is time — specifically, time using NASA’s brand-new, ultra-powerful observatory. The James Webb Space Telescope, also known as JWST or Webb, launched on Dec. 25, 2021, and is scheduled to begin science observations by this summer. Astronomers eagerly await that moment: Scientists believe that the telescope’s sensitivity and … Read more
A new Russian cargo ship will blast off today (Feb. 14) with tons of supplies and equipment for the Expedition 66 crew of the International Space Station. Here’s how you can watch it live. A Soyuz rocket from the Russian space agency Roscosmos is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:25 … Read more
India’s first launch of 2022 will send a new Earth observation satellite to space after a sibling satellite was lost in a failed launch last year. You can watch the launch of the EOS-04 satellite live on Sunday (Feb. 13) at 7:29 p.m. EST (0029 GMT or 6:29 p.m. local time Monday, Feb. 14), assuming … Read more
US astronaut, doctor and engineer Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to go into space in 1992. She was one of seven crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, on a mission named STS-47. The youngest of three children, Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, but moved to Chicago, Illinois, at the age of three. … Read more
Astronomers say a “hyperburst” nuclear explosion within a neutron star could explain its strange behaviour – but the conditions required to create the explosion are so rare that we will probably never see one again Space 11 February 2022 By Jonathan O’Callaghan An artist’s illustration of an explosion in space Shutterstock/mik ulyannikov Astronomers think they … Read more