Space Stuff

I really cannot wait for them to get the JWST up there :cool:
 
It's ALIIIIIVE: Boffins detect slow-moving zombie star
Red giant revives a nearby corpse through the emission of cosmic wind
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The European Space Agency's INTEGRAL space observatory has captured an unusual piece of stellar voodoo: the moment when a dead star was brought back to life by a nearby red giant.

The slowly rotating core of the zombie star was revived by x-ray flares from its engorged neighbour, giving rise to a high energy emission from the corpse.
 
ESA builds air-breathing engine that works in space
You’re right, there’s no air in space, but there’s enough to squirt about in very low orbits
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Schema of the European Space Agency's air breathing electric propulsion engine

The European Space Agency has hailed the successful test of an air-breathing engine that works in space.

The engines don’t need the oxygen found in air to burn. Instead, as the ESA has explained here, the idea is to collect air, compress it, give it a charge and then squirt it out to provide thrust.

The engine has no moving parts and all that’s needed to power the engine is electricity. Spacecraft can generally harvest that from the Sun.
 
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For all we know, aliens could be as careless with space junk as us
Astroboffin suggests scanning exoplanets for xenocrap in orbit
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A physicist at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in the Canary Islands has proposed a way by which planet hunters might detect advanced alien technology.

Simply look for their junk in orbit.

Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in recent years, and huge observatories such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope(JWST) will provide unprecedented details of the atmospheric composition of exoplanets transiting their star.

However, while it is looking like humankind may soon be able to spot the biomarkers of exolife, spotting a technologically advanced civilisation continues to present a challenge. Astroboffin Hector Socas-Navarro proposes that rather than looking at the exoplanet itself, researchers turn their attention to the "Clarke Exobelt" (CEB).
 
Vector founder: “100 percent” confident in first orbital launch this year
"Not to pick on them, but we don't work on SpaceX schedules."
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Vector gets ready for the launch of Vector-R Block 0.1 in 2017.
The cofounder of the Vector rocket company, James Cantrell, said this week that he is 100 percent confident that his Vector-R vehicle will launch this year. This launch will occur from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska, carrying a payload of two PocketQube satellites and an Alba Orbital deployer.

"My confidence level is 100 percent," Cantrell said during a telephone interview with Ars on Thursday. "Not to pick on them, but we don't work on SpaceX schedules. We can't afford to run a business like that. We're not giving you schedules that we know we can't live with."

The company's two-stage Vector-R launcher (the R stands for "rapid") uses three LP-1 engines to lift the rocket off the pad, and it can deploy a payload with a maximum of 66kg into orbit. A later variant, the Vector-H (heavy), will have the capacity to deploy up to 110kg into space.
 
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The butterfly nebula in the constellation Scorpius

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Fascinating. Thousands of years ago they noticed the moon has a circular shadow which could only be explained by the Earth being spherical. If it were flat the shadow of the moon would be a straight line.
 
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