NASA awards $150 million for moon power systems, other exploration tech

NASA will award $150 million to advance the development of potentially revolutionary exploration technologies, including systems that could power outposts on the moon. The money will be split among 11 different American companies, to support projects that could help humanity get a foothold on the moon and other locales in deep space. “Partnering with the commercial space industry lets us at NASA harness the strength of American innovation and ingenuity,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on Tuesday (July 25) that announced the new funding. “The technologies that…

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Satellites watch as wildfires rage across Greece (photos)

The relentless wildfires in Greece can be seen from space as the blazes rage across the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia.  The wildfires started last week on July 17. Authorities suspect arson may have caused the initial blaze, which has since been fueled by high winds, ongoing heat waves and subsequent dry conditions. Tens of thousands of people have since been ordered to evacuate the islands during peak tourism season. Data from multiple Earth-observing satellites have captured the fires as they’ve spread across the Greek islands. The Copernicus Sentinel-2…

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SpaceX Falcon Heavy shows off its 27 engines ahead of July 26 launch (photo)

A new photo from SpaceX highlights the immense power of the engines of a sleeping Falcon Heavy rocket.  The next Falcon Heavy is scheduled to launch the Jupiter 3/EchoStar 24 mission on Wednesday (July 26), during which it will carry the world’s largest private communications satellite to a geostationary orbit. Ahead of the launch, SpaceX has joined the rocket’s three boosters together in the company’s hangar at Launch Complex-39A (LC-39A), at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. SpaceX posted a photo to their Twitter account, which features a close-up of…

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A supermassive black hole is spitting a high-energy jet toward Earth

A NASA mission has observed a supermassive black hole pointing its highly energetic jet straight toward Earth. Don’t panic just yet, though. As fearsome as this cosmic event  is, it’s located at a very safe distance of about 400 million light-years away. Actively feeding supermassive black holes, including the one at hand, are surrounded by swirling disks of matter called accretion disks which gradually feed them over time. Some of the material they don’t swallow is then channeled toward their poles, where it’s subsequently blasted out at near-light,  or relativistic,…

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