News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
It’s been nearly 350 years since Sir Issac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” but the sentiment certainly holds true today. Newton’s wisdom is exemplified by a grand project called the Cosmic Evolution Survey, or COSMOS. COSMOS builds on the legacy of the Hubble Space … Read more
“From time immemorial, we humans have looked up at the night sky, marveling at billions of tiny specks. Settling on distant planets was once the domain of poets and dreamers, but with every leap in technology we come closer to realizing their dreams.” Those words, spoken by famed German director Werner Herzog, kick off the … Read more
A meteor that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 could have also been somehow involved in the giant impact that formed the Moon. This tantalizing finding comes thanks to a new way of dating collisions between rocks in space, based on microscopic analysis of minerals within meteorites. Although further investigation is warranted, … Read more
Several instruments are preparing to help the James Webb Space Telescope with its mirror alignment and future observations, with several key steps achieved in recent days, according to NASA. The filter wheel for the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) has been successfully calibrated, allowing this key part of the Fine Guidance System (FGS) … Read more
Russia’s space program will degrade under new U.S. sanctions, U.S. President Joe Biden said today (Feb. 24). Russia invaded Ukraine this week, launching military attacks in multiple cities that have so far killed at least 40 people, according to the Associated Press. World leaders around the globe have responded to the conflict, and Biden announced … Read more
Could Russia’s military and political actions in Ukraine upend science and exploration in outer space? International political tensions are high after Russia invaded Ukraine this week, with attacks beginning near the capital Kyiv as well as in Kharkiv near the Russian border. The world hasn’t witnessed a “move like this, nation state-to-nation state, since World … Read more
The Hubble Space Telescope continues to scout on behalf of the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope to guide future astronomy work. A stunning new image released by Hubble officials shows a single example of that collaboration: a pair of galaxies known as Arp 298, interacting 200 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. … Read more
A superhabitable planet is a world that might have an even better chance at hosting life than our own home, Earth. Because Earth is the only known inhabited planet and its life depends on liquid water, efforts to identify exoplanets that could host life focus on Earth-like worlds. But some researchers think there are other … Read more
China has had a bumper few years in space exploration, and its ambitions are about to get bolder. The China National Space Administration has released an overview of its plans for the next five years, which include launching a robotic craft to an asteroid, building a space telescope to rival the Hubble and laying the … Read more
A billion years ago, an absolutely monstrous collision of two clusters of galaxies produced a pair of shock waves of absolutely epic proportions. Today, the structures gleam brightly in radio wavelengths, so huge they could easily engulf the Milky Way galaxy’s estimated 100,000 light-year diameter, stretching up to 6.5 million light-years through intergalactic space. … Read more