Engineers have devised a new technique to clear space debris using magnets.

This would allow you to move the debris where you wanted it to go without actually having to touch it. “What we wanted to do was to manipulate the thing, not just shove it but actually manipulate it like you do on Earth,” Abbott said. “That form of dexterous manipulation has never been done before.”

While this is important for clearing out space junk that can’t be repaired, this method could also be … See more.

The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to head to space on December 18 2021. With it, astronomers hope to find the first galaxies to form in the universe, will search for Earthlike atmospheres around other planets and accomplish many other scientific goals.

I am an astronomer and the principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera – or NIRCam for short – aboard the Webb telescope. I have participated in the development and testing for both my camera and the telescope as a whole.

To see deep into the universe, the telescope has a very large mirror and must be kept extremely cold. But getting a fragile piece of equipment like this to space is no simple task. There have been many challenges my colleagues and I have had to overcome to design, test and soon launch and align the most powerful space telescope ever built.

It would travel faster and farther than any man-made object we’ve made thus far.

When the famous Voyager twin spacecraft left Earth in the 1970s, their mission was originally meant to last only five years. However, the plutonium-powered spacecraft were still going strong when they reached Jupiter and Saturn, so NASA engineers decided they would try a flyby of Uranus and Neptune. But, even after that, the spacecraft still kept going and going — and they’re still at it almost 50 years later. So much so that both probes made history by officially exiting the bubble-shaped region created by the sun’s wind, known as the heliosphere, crossing into interstellar space.

Although they’re 14 billion and 11 billion miles, respectively, away from Earth, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are continuing to provide invaluable scientific data. For instance, sensors on the spacecraft are recording important information about the composition and levels of the gas, dust, and radiation that fills interstellar space — which is anything but empty, contrary to popular belief. This wouldn’t have been possible without these two daring spacecraft.

However, the Voyager twins can’t go on forever. Scientists estimate that the last instruments onboard the spacecraft will shut down by 2031 at the latest, if some malfunction doesn’t happen before then. This is why NASA wants a replacement — and this time, this new interstellar mission will be designed to run for a long time from the get-go. In fact, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) who have been tasked with designing the new mission, believe this Voyager successor could function for more than a century.

Here comes another great month for stargazing. If you’ve been learning about the night sky during lockdown and paying attention to what goes on each evening in the skies above you may already have seen a bright naked-eye comet, a “Super Blood Moon” lunar eclipse and even a super-rare “great conjunction.”

Now get ready for some repeats—and some incredible new sights.

November will see a couple of meteor showers—the South and North Taurids—as well as the seventh planet, Uranus, at opposition. Those in North America may also get to see a big partial lunar eclipse on November 19 2021 and, if we’re all really lucky, our planet may just get treated to another rare sight as Comet Leonard pays us a visit. That’s due to look its best in December, but for now there’s plenty to get excited about in the November night skies … not least the return of the famous constellation of Orion “the hunter”.

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