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Designing a satellite to hunt small space debris

A University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist is participating in a U.S. government effort to design a satellite and instruments capable of detecting space debris as small as 1 centimeter, less than one-half inch.

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NASA installs heat shield on first private spacecraft bound for Venus

Led by Rocket Lab of Long Beach, California, and their partners at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Rocket Lab’s Venus mission will be the first private mission to the planet.

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Hubble provides bird’s-eye view of Andromeda galaxy’s ecosystem

Located 2.5 million light-years away, the majestic Andromeda galaxy appears to the naked eye as a faint, spindle-shaped object roughly the angular size of the full moon. What backyard observers don’t see is a swarm of nearly three dozen small satellite galaxies circling the Andromeda galaxy, like bees around a hive.

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Baby, you’re a firework! Katy Perry to blast off into space

Pop star Katy Perry is set to “shoot across the sky” this spring when she lifts off as part of a six-member, all-female crew on Blue Origin’s next space flight, the company announced Thursday.

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How did life develop on early Earth? New source of nitrogen discovered

Living organisms need nitrogen as a central building block for protein formation, for example. However, although our atmosphere contains plenty of nitrogen, neither humans nor the vast majority of plants can absorb it directly from the air.

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The ISS is overly sterile: Making it ‘dirtier’ could improve astronaut health

Astronauts often experience immune dysfunction, skin rashes, and other inflammatory conditions while traveling in space. A new study published in the journal Cell suggests that these issues could be due to the excessively sterile nature of spacecraft.

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Hydrogen cyanide and acetylene detected in a brown dwarf atmosphere for the first time

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has explored the atmosphere of a nearby brown dwarf binary designated WISE J045853.90+643451.9. As a result, they detected hydrogen cyanide and acetylene in the atmosphere of this binary, marking the first time these two species have been identified in the atmosphere of a […]

Most powerful gamma ray observatory gets green light

At the start of the year, the European Commission established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), furthering its mission to become the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy.

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Most powerful gamma ray observatory gets green light

At the start of the year, the European Commission established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), furthering its mission to become the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy.

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Metal made in space lands on Earth

The first metal 3D part ever created in orbit has landed on Earth.

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Engineers create first flat telescope lens that can capture color while detecting light from faraway stars

For centuries, lenses have worked the same way: curved glass or plastic bending light to bring images into focus. But traditional lenses have a major drawback—the more powerful they need to be, the bulkier and heavier they become.

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SpaceX launch sends ice hunters to the moon

A SpaceX launch Wednesday night sent both a lander and an orbiter on their way to the moon, both on the hunt for ice.

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Private US company blasts off for second moon landing attempt

A US company is aiming for its second lunar touchdown after a lander carrying a suite of unique experiments successfully launched aboard a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday.

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As expected, the threat from Asteroid 2024 YR4 has essentially dropped to zero

New information is pushing Asteroid 2024 YR4 off of our front pages. Initial estimates gave it a 2.8% chance of striking Earth in 2032. Now, the European Space Agency says the chance of it striking our planet is down to a paltry 0.001%.

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Image: The Milky Way on the horizon

NASA astronaut Don Pettit used a camera with low light and long duration settings to capture this Jan. 29, 2025, image of the Milky Way appearing beyond Earth’s horizon.

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