Since its launch in 2018, NASA's space-based TESS telescope has discovered at least 37 confirmed exoplanets and identified more than 1,500 exoplanet candidates. And now, it has uncovered its first Tatooine-like circumbinary planet — a world that orbits two stars instead of one.
Astronomers have found only a handful of such circumbinary planets so far. But the new discovery shows that many more of these exotic systems may be located around bright, nearby stars like those TESS is built to study. By finding and investigating more of these systems, astronomers hope to get a better understanding of how binary star systems form and evolve.
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How a New Wave of Orbiting Sentinels Is Changing Climate Science - Scientific American
O n Sept. 15, 2018, at precisely 6:02 a.m., a Delta II rocket lifted off in a cloud of fire and smoke from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast. The payload, a NASA observation satellite known as ICESat-2, measured roughly the size of an automobile, and weighed in at 3,338 pounds. At an altitude 310 miles above the Earth, the satellite decoupled from the rocket and moved into orbit. After that, its work began.
Traveling around the planet at 15,660 mph, ICESat-2 began aiming a six-beam, green-spectrum laser toward Earth’s surface. Its goal for the next three years — and perhaps as long as seven years, if its machinery continued working — would be to constantly measure the glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice, oceans, and tree canopies far below.
There's a Junkyard Orbiting Earth.
Granted, "200,000" is just a small fraction of the junk that's up there. According to the European Space Agency, there are about 34,000 objects larger than 10 cm diameter in orbit today, but about 900,000 more ranging in sizes from 1 to 10 cm -- and 128 million of sizes down to 1 mm. Still, "200,000" is four times more objects than the Air Force was previously capable of tracking.
Five years after the contract was awarded, the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center confirmed last month that Lockheed's Space Fence has begun a "trial period." Assuming the results of these trials are positive, the Space Fence could soon be declared operational.
Orbit Partners With Flume to Bring Innovative Smart Water Monitoring to Homeowners
LAS VEGAS , Jan. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SPECIAL TO CES -- Orbit, the leader in smart watering with B-hyve technology, today announced a strategic partnership with Flume, a leading source for real-time home water data. Through the partnership, the two companies will integrate their technologies to provide homeowners with unprecedented insights into their outdoor and indoor water flow rates for better conservation and efficiency.
Combining Orbit's B-hyve Smart Sprinkler Timers with Flume's Smart Water Monitor creates the most advanced system to provide a fully comprehensive look at water use within a home. The ability to differentiate how much water is used, whether in the home or in the yard, makes a significant difference when looking to eliminate water waste that can be expensive and damaging.
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SpaceX Just Launched a New Fleet of Its Controversial Starlink Satellites
SpaceX on Monday launched its third batch of 60 mini-satellites into orbit, part of its plans to build a giant constellation of thousands of spacecraft that will form a global broadband internet system.
The cluster of 60 satellites separated successfully from a Falcon 9 rocket above the ocean between Australia and Antarctica an hour after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 9:19 pm (0219 GMT Tuesday).
But that figure could one day total 42,000, resulting in far more crowded skies, which has raised concerns among astronomers that they may one day threaten our view of the cosmos.
Space-baked cookies, 40 mice return from orbit
SpaceX provided the ride home Tuesday, a month after its Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station. The capsule parachuted into the Pacific, returning 3,800 pounds of gear.
Scientists also are getting back 40 mice that flew up in early December, including eight genetically engineered to have twice the normal muscle mass. Some of the non-mighty mice bulked up in orbit for the muscle study; others will pack it on once they’re back in the lab.
Tackling the Earth's orbiting space junk - BBC News
Here's a quiz question: what do using road navigation systems, keeping time consistent around the world and having accurate stock exchange data have in common? The answer is that they all depend on working satellites. But an increasing amount of debris polluting space is now posing a risk to all those services. So one Japanese firm, Astroscale, has been working on ways to clean up space junk. Its founder and chief executive Nobu Okada explains.
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James Webb Space Telescope on Track for March 2021 Launch, NASA Says https://t.co/4KV44ht73E https://t.co/chepHWT660 SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Mon Jan 06 12:54:35 +0000 2020
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 21 gamma-ray constellations with names including Hulk, Godzilla,… https://t.co/kptGwMp5Xa qikipedia (from QI HQ) Tue Jan 07 11:29:55 +0000 2020
📷 This NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope image shows a close-up view of a galaxy named NGC 2770. NGC 2770 is intrigu… https://t.co/tmFcKnkU8H esa (from Europe) Mon Jan 06 11:30:04 +0000 2020
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