Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: space

STOCKHOLM (GomSpace PR) — As part of a mission to demonstrate interlink communication on nanosatellite tandem formation flights and data retrieval, including surveillance of the Arctic area, the Danish nanosatellite specialist GomSpace launched two nanosatellites in February.

Twelve weeks later, GomSpace for the first time showed the possibility of live data capture from the two nanosatellites in space at a press conference held in Aalborg, Denmark. At the same time, the press conference marked the official transition to the so-called demonstration phase, following the mission’s test phase. The latter has thus been successfully completed, and the mission is now ready to carry out its scheduled tasks.

On February 2, 2018, GomSpace launched two nanosatellites mounted on the Chinese missile Long March 2D from a launch station in the Gobi Desert. The objective of the two nanosatellites, based on GomSpace’s 6U platform, is in part to monitor the Arctic area. It is an area where ice has melted significantly in recent years, meaning that the area sees more and more activity in the shape of aircraft and ships, researchers and tourists.

Read more

A random-code technique has been used at Arecibo to obtain delay-Doppler radar images of the full disk of Mercury. Anomalously bright features were found at the north and south poles. The north polar feature is oblong (4° by 8°) and offset from the pole. The smaller south polar feature is mostly confined to the floor of the crater Chao Meng-Fu. The polar locations and radar properties of these features indicate that they may be produced by volume scattering in ice. The images also reveal a variety of more subdued reflectivity features ranging in size from hundreds to thousands of kilometers; some of these appear to have an impact origin.

Read more

A moderate geomagnetic storm kicked up in Earth’s skies Friday morning (April 20), bringing green and rare electric-blue auroras that stretched as far south as Indiana.

The space-weather news site Spaceweather.com reported that an “interplanetary shock wave” hit Earth’s magnetic field at about 3:50 a.m. EDT (2350 on April 19 GMT), quadrupling the intensity of the flow of particles streaming from the sun toward Earth, called the solar wind. The incoming wave of material resulted in a G2-level, or moderate, geomagnetic storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). These types of storms can cause power grid fluctuations and have some impact on radio communications. [See Spectacular Photos of Auroras from Space]

And they also cause enhanced auroras. This storm led to auroras possibly reaching through Canada and as far south as New York, Wisconsin and Washington state in the U.S., the SWPC said.

Read more

Tour the ISS to catch up with the astronauts and hear their testimonials about what it feels like to watch Earth from space every day.

The National Geographic Channel has one major treat coming up for its viewers, reports Space.com.

Channel officials have disclosed the tantalizing news that they have made the first 3D Virtual Reality (VR) film ever shot in space.

Read more

And, in addition to these heavy hitters, there are quite a few other companies offering tourists a chance to reach space, too. Some are farther along in development than others, and there are always reasons to be skeptical when talking about space tourism. We’ve seen plenty of similar ventures come and go over the years without making it to space. But we choose to remain optimistic. Here are the most recent commercial space programs that would love to take you out of this world—for a price.

orion span

An illustration of what the interior of Orion Span’s Aurora Station might look like.

Read more

UNSW scientists in collaboration with European scientists demonstrated that the “DNA”, or spectra, of more than 340,000 stars in the Milky Way could aid them to search the siblings of the Sun, now scattered across the sky.

Scientists actually are working on project GALAH, the survey observations for the ambitious galactic archaeology project- which launched in late 2013 as part of a quest to uncover the formulation and evolution of galaxies. Scientists gathered the data from HERMES spectrograph at the Australian Astronomical Observatory’s (AAO) 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope near Coonabarabran in NSW to collect spectra for the 340,000 stars.

The data shows that how the Universe went from having just hydrogen and helium soon after the Big Bang to being loaded with every one of the components show now on Earth that is fundamental forever.

Read more