Saturday, December 19, 2020

Space Force official: Russian missile tests expose vulnerability of low-orbiting satellites  -

WASHINGTON — Russia on Dec. 15 conducted a ballistic missile test that U.S. Space Command condemned as a threat to satellites in orbit.

"The nation must do something about this," said Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, director of staff of the Office of the Chief of Space Operations of the U.S. Space Force.

Speaking Dec. 16 at a Washington Space Business Roundtable virtual event, Armagno said the recent Russian missile test shows how vulnerable satellites are, and validates the decision to establish a military space service focused on defending U.S. space systems.

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Publisher: SpaceNews
Date: 2020-12-16T21:43:23 00:00
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Twitter: @SpaceNews_Inc
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Politics of Orbits: Will We Meet Halfway? - Journal #114 December 2020 - e-flux

An artist's rendition of "The Behemoth," an enormous comet-like cloud of hydrogen bleeding off of a warm, Neptune-sized planet. Also depicted is the parent star, which is a faint red dwarf named GJ 436. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI).

Transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. Image captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID /  CC BY 2.0 .

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NASA Launched a Rocket 54 Years Ago. Has It Finally Come Home? - The New York Times

Dec. 2: This article has been updated with information about additional observations completed by astronomers after it was published.

It was after midnight on Sept. 19 and Paul Chodas, the manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was working late, studying an object called 2020 SO that other astronomers had spotted in the night skies just the day before. Something about its orbit was peculiar.

Date: 2020-12-01T15:11:09.000Z
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Jupiter and Saturn Conjunction: How to See It on Monday | KQED

On the evening of Dec. 21, the planets Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer together than in almost 800 years, only a tenth of a degree apart, or one-fifth the width of the full moon. They won’t be this close again until March 2080.

This juxtaposition of giants will shine like few things you’ve seen in the sky, and offers a rare sight through the eyepiece of even a small telescope.

* * *

Since before the pandemic began, Jupiter and Saturn have crept closer and closer together, first appearing back in February, rising with the dawn.

Publisher: KQED
Twitter: @kqed
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A pair of lonely planet-like objects born like stars -- ScienceDaily

Star-forming processes sometimes create mysterious astronomical objects called brown dwarfs, which are smaller and colder than stars, and can have masses and temperatures down to those of exoplanets in the most extreme cases. Just like stars, brown dwarfs often wander alone through space, but can also be seen in binary systems, where two brown dwarfs orbit one another and travel together in the galaxy.

Researchers led by Clémence Fontanive from the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) and the NCCR PlanetS discovered a curious starless binary system of brown dwarfs. The system CFHTWIR-Oph 98 (or Oph 98 for short) consists of the two very low-mass objects Oph 98 A and Oph 98 B. It is located 450 light years away from Earth in the stellar association Ophiuchus.

Publisher: ScienceDaily
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Low-orbit satellites key to new Ohio broadband pilot

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Low-orbiting satellites floating less than 600 miles (965 kilometers) above Earth are key to a new broadband technology that Ohio will test early next year in hopes of eventually offering it more widely.

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted announced the pilot program Wednesday. The Republican said that if the new concept is successful it can help the state get service to remote regions, particularly in Appalachia, where a lack of high-speed internet has stymied economic development, education and health care for decades.

Publisher: dayton-daily-news
Twitter: @dayton-daily-news
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China roadmaps ambitious space projects, starting with 11 launches in next two years - Global

China's Chang'e-5 successfully landed at its designated landing area in Siwangzi Banner, N China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region around 2 am Thursday, carrying around 2 kgs of lunar samples. Photos show workers checking craft's status. Photo: Our Space/ Wang Jiangbo

Technical personnel work at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing on December 1. China's Chang'e-5 spacecraft successfully landed on the near side of the moon late Tuesday and sent back images. Photo: CNSA

Author: Global Times
Twitter: @globaltimesnews
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Planet 9, a Black Hole Mystery, and Planets Beyond – Now. Powered by Northrop Grumman

Is the mysterious, much-searched-for Planet 9 (also known as Planet X) really a black hole no larger than a grapefruit? Reports to that effect have caused a stir online, especially when they appear in highly regarded sources such as Science magazine.

The scientific search for a ninth planet — or, possibly, a black hole counterpart — remains inconclusive and uncertain. Even the boundary between speculation and discovery can be faint and hard to define, and the choices of what possibilities to explore can be as challenging as the exploration itself.

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Publisher: Now. Powered by Northrop Grumman
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