Former Disney TV star Bridgit Mendler co-founds satellite ‘data highway’ startup

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On Tuesday (Feb. 20), after a relatively long hiatus from the public eye, Bridgit Mendler announced the launch of her new satellite data startup, Northwood. Beyond introducing quite an interesting company — one that aims to make satellite technology more accessible by mass-producing data-retrieving ground stations on Earth — there’s another major reason the launch has been making headlines. Once upon a time, Mendler was a Disney Channel actress.  The 31-year-old space CEO is probably best known for her role as Teddy Duncan, the delightful older sister of Charlie Duncan…

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Intuitive Machines’ private Odysseus moon lander on track for Feb. 22 lunar landing

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The voyaging Odysseus remains on course for a moon landing this week. The Odysseus moon lander, built by Houston company Intuitive Machines, completed two engine burns in deep space on Feb. 16 and Feb. 18 and is sailing on the right course through space, the company said on X. The mission lifted off on a a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early Feb. 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and all systems and science are healthy as it makes its way towards the moon. But the lander will soon…

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NASA Astronaut Available for Interviews Prior to Space Station Mission

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NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson poses for a portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credits: NASA NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson is available in limited opportunities to discuss her mission beginning at 8 a.m. EST on Monday, Feb. 26. The interviews will take place ahead of Dyson launching to the International Space Station in March. The virtual interviews will stream live on NASA+, NASA Television, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. Interested media must submit a request…

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Australia seeks public help to design its 1st moon rover, Roo-ver

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Australia’s first lunar rover has a name — now, it needs a design.  The Australian Space Agency is building a semi-autonomous rover, called “Roo-ver,” that will launch to the moon as early as 2026 in partnership with NASAs Artemis lunar program. The rover will collect samples of lunar “soil,” specifically known as regolith, from which NASA will attempt to extract oxygen — a key step toward establishing a sustainable human presence on the moon and producing rocket fuel to support future missions to Mars. Recently, Australia hosted a naming competition…

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South Pole Telescope has a ‘treasure map’ to the secrets of dark matter

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Ancient cosmic light that has uniformly filled the universe since around 400,000 years after the Big Bang could act like a treasure map that guides scientists to the secrets of dark matter. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) refers to the first light to freely travel across the universe. Its journey began after space had expanded and cooled enough to allow electrons and protons to form the first atoms, meaning electrons were no longer endlessly scattering photons, and the universe instantly went from being opaque to being transparent. The CMB, or…

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Major X-ray sky survey could relieve crisis surrounding the universe’s ‘lumpiness’

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A new analysis of how galaxy clusters evolved over the 13.8-billion-year history of the cosmos could help solve a long-standing tension surrounding the ‘lumpiness’ of our universe’s matter content. Down the line, it may also help scientists solve a host of other cosmic mysteries.  The first data from the eROSITA all-sky survey of cosmic X-ray sources, which completed 4.5 full sky surveys in February of 2022, contained precision measurements of both the amount of total matter in the universe and the matter’s level of smoothness, or “homogeneity.” These findings could…

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Our universe is merging with ‘baby universes’, causing it to expand, new theoretical study suggests

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Our universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate — a phenomenon that all theories of cosmology agree upon but none can fully explain. Now, a new theoretical study offers an intriguing solution: Perhaps our universe is expanding because it keeps colliding with and absorbing “baby” parallel universes. Studies of the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang, have revealed that our universe is experiencing accelerated expansion. For this observation to fit with  the main theory of cosmic evolution — called the Standard Cosmological Model — physicists assume that…

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Watch trailer for ‘Space: The Longest Goodbye,’ new film exploring astronaut mental health (video)

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Scientists and mission planners are investigating how long-term space travel affects the human mind and body, as they work to get astronauts ready to make the big leap to Mars. The mental aspects — the feelings of loneliness, isolation and solitude that could come with a multiyear space mission — are increasingly coming under the microscope, as an award-winning new documentary shows. That film, “Space: The Longest Goodbye,” delves into the complexities of cerebral concerns to carve a pathway toward identifying and treating long-term mental health issues in space as…

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I put Abisko’s ‘cloud-busting weapon’ to the test during a Sweden northern lights adventure and was not disappointed

NeRD

As we near solar maximum — a period of heightened solar activity within the sun’s 11-year solar cycle — the question on everyone’s lips is “Where should I go to see the northern lights“? The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are caused by energetic particles from the sun. When they hit Earth our magnetic field funnels them toward the poles (we have southern lights, or aurora australis, in the southern hemisphere too). All you need to see them is the right conditions, patience and a little bit of luck.  While…

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