Category: Solar System

Our solar system

A new, deadly era of space junk is dawning, and no one is ready

NeRD

Originally published at Scientific American. Samantha Lawler is an assistant professor of Astronomy at the University of Regina. The e-mail arrived, like a bolt from blue, on the otherwise typical Thursday afternoon of May 9. The message was from a journalist, asking me, an astronomer, for an interview about a farmer who had reportedly found space junk while prepping his fields for springtime seeding, just an hour’s drive from my home in Saskatchewan. “Yeah, right,” I said to myself as I tapped out my affirmative reply. The odds are already…

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Drone racing is helping train AI to autonomously drive spacecraft

NeRD

We’re off to the races! The AI-driven drone races, that is. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) has partnered with the Delft University of Technology’s (TU Delft) Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory in the Netherlands to train neural-network artificial intelligence systems to race drones. Ultimately, this program will test AI’s ability to handle complicated maneuvers, which could then be implemented on future space missions. (There’s a Star Wars pod racing joke in here somewhere.)  Neural networks in AI mimic human brains in the way they pass along information…

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‘Meatball’ milestone: NASA’s original logo still soars after 65 years

NeRD

One of the world’s best known — and certainly most-traveled — logos is 65 years old. Since its announcement on July 15, 1959, the insignia representing NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has adorned both t-shirts and spacesuits, been reproduced as large as 10 stories tall and reached the surfaces of both the moon and Mars. The red, white and blue logo is NASA’s oldest official identifier, even predating the agency’s formal seal. Designed by James Modarelli, the then-head of the research reports division at NASA’s Lewis Research…

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Save $30 on this magnificent Lego Ideas Tales of the Space Age lo-fi sci-fi set

NeRD

This Prime Day Lego deal offers a 40% discount on a set that appeals to nostalgia lovers and futurists. Lego Ideas Tales of the Space Age set is a set of four buildable Lego ‘postcards’, depicting scenes inspired by the science fiction of the 70s and 80s. From a lander approaching a moon base through to a black hole opening above a planet, these sets can be displayed individually or as one scene.You can get the Lego Ideas Tales of the Space Age set on sale at Amazon for $39.99.…

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Scientists call the region of space influenced by the sun the heliosphere – but without an interstellar probe, they don’t know much about its shape

NeRD

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Sarah Spitzer is a research fellow in Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. The sun warms the Earth, making it habitable for people and animals. But that’s not all it does, and it affects a much larger area of space. The heliosphere, the area of space influenced by the sun, is over a hundred times larger than the distance from the sun to the Earth. The sun is a…

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Stargazing with the naked eye: What you can see this week July 15 – 21

NeRD

If you want to enjoy the night sky, all you need is curiosity, patience and good weather.  A good telescope or pair of binoculars will help you see some of the night sky’s fainter objects. However, the unaided eye is enough to learn its stars and constellations, watch the moon, experience meteor showers and see satellites whizz across the night sky.  Read on to find out what you can see in the night sky this week without any equipment, from the moon close to planets and bright stars to catching…

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Is Earth’s weather getting weirder?

NeRD

Severe turbulence, record rainfall, killer heatwaves and raging wildfires to name but a few: is it just me, or is “Is Earth’s weather getting weirder?” The answer? Yes. Well, sort of.  These weather events have happened in the past, but the problem is nowadays they’re happening more frequently and to a far greater extent.  What’s causing this uptick in “global weirding” and is there anything we can do about it? Space.com spoke with a leading climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe to learn more about this strange surge in weird weather events…

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‘The Last Starfighter’ at 40: Director Nick Castle on making his sci-fi fantasy classic (exclusive)

NeRD

“Greetings Starfighter, you have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.  Get ready!  Prepare for blast off!” The summer of 1984 was a banner year for Hollywood, with a bounty of A-list releases that included such iconic titles as “Ghostbusters,” “Gremlins,” “Star Trek III: The Search For Spock,” “Conan the Destroyer,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “The Karate Kid,” “Purple Rain,” “Red Dawn,” “The Company of Wolves.” “The Neverending Story,” and “Revenge of the Nerds.” Added to that esteemed…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 119 —Junkyard in Space

NeRD

Junkyard in Space – The Dangers of Orbital Debris – YouTube Watch On On Episode 119 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik talk with Dr. John Crassidis from the University of Buffalo about orbital debris and its dangers. If you saw the movie “Gravity,” you have a sense of the dangers of orbital debris—and the risk is very real. More than 25,000 objects over four inches in diameter are tracked by the US Space Force, and millions of others are smaller or untracked—everything from derelict satellites…

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Chinese company iSpace suffers 4th launch failure in 7 tries

NeRD

The Chinese company iSpace’s launch-success rate has dipped below 50% once again.  iSpace’s seventh Hyperbola-1 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Wednesday (July 10) at 7:40 p.m. EDT (2340 GMT; 7:40 a.m. on July 11 Beijing time), carrying an undisclosed payload toward Earth orbit. But the solid-fueled launcher didn’t make it. “The first, second and third stages of the rocket flew normally, but the fourth stage worked abnormally, and the launch mission failed,” iSpace wrote in an update on Wednesday night. (Translation…

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