Space

If you know nothing about what’s happening kilometers above the clouds, maybe you should. While investors prefer sectors with nearer-term benefits, space is an area Morgan Stanley anticipates will see “significant development.” Several recent events support the potential to transition investments in the global space economy from what is mostly the private equity domain to […]

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has a vision for renewed and “sustainable” human exploration of the moon, and he cites the existence of water on the lunar surface as a key to chances for success. “We know that there’s hundreds of billions of tons of water ice on the surface of the moon,” Bridenstine said in […]

SEATTLE—The space company of billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen on Aug. 20 unveiled details of medium-lift rockets and a reusable space cargo plane it is developing, injecting more competition into the lucrative launch services market. With its rockets, Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems Corp is trying to cash in on higher demand in the coming years for […]

Scientists have confirmed the existence of ice on the surface of the moon. The findings have important significance for humankind’s future space explorations. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on Aug. 20. The study’s lead author, Dr. Shuai Li, a planetary […]

It’s starting to feel real. Boeing Co. and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. have contracts with NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station as part of what’s known as the Commercial Crew Program. Seven years after the end of the space shuttle program, NASA introduced the astronauts who will fly with both […]

NASA astronauts who will be riding the SpaceX Dragon discussed the challenges they’ve faced and what they’re looking forward to while speaking at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on Aug. 13 ahead of the Crew Dragon mission. NASA last week assigned the astronauts who will ride the first commercial capsules into orbit next year […]

NASA successfully launched a spacecraft toward the sun on Aug. 12, hoping to increase scientific understanding of how our star works. The Parker Solar Probe’s departure promises to set a plethora of records, including speediest spacecraft, highest velocity while leaving Earth and closest solar approach. It will also mark the first robotic visit to a […]

NASA launched a space probe early Sunday that will go closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before, the agency announced. The craft will endure extreme heat while zooming through the solar corona to study the Sun’s outer atmosphere that gives rise to the solar winds. The Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft the size of […]

Scientists using a radio-telescope array have spotted a gigantic roaming cosmic body with an abnormally strong magnetic field. The object is one of five supposed brown dwarfs located by the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico in 2016. Brown dwarfs are failed stars—objects much larger than most planets but too small to […]

A new radio telescope in Canada recently captured a strange signal from deep space. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, is located in British Columbia and monitors for signals beaming from outer space. BGR noted that the signal’s reception was revealed in a new bulletin from The Astronomer’s Telegram, and happened on July […]

If you see a blazing red light in the sky tonight (July 31) don’t panic. It’s just Mars, rushing toward Earth. Not that there is any danger of collision—the two planets will be 35.8 million miles apart, give or take a few miles. But Mars will be closer to the Earth than it has been […]

LONDON/SYDNEY—A blood moon will dominate the sky across much of the world on Friday night when the earth’s natural satellite moves into the shadow of our planet for the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st Century. The total eclipse will last 1 hour, 42 minutes and 57 seconds, though a partial eclipse precedes and follows, […]

BERLIN—A team of international scientists observing a star in the Milky Way have for the first time confirmed Einstein’s predictions of what happens to the motion of a star passing close to a supermassive black hole. Einstein’s 100-year-old general theory of relativity predicted that light from stars would be stretched to longer wavelengths by the […]

The moon will transform into a blood red hue this Friday night, July 27, during the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century. People around the world, except in North America, will be able to catch at least some of the celestial sight. On the same day, Mars will appear at its brightest directly below […]

FRANKFURT – Europe launched four more Galileo satellites on Wednesday, taking the number in orbit to 26 and moving a step closer to having its own navigation system, just as the program has become the latest flashpoint in Brexit negotiations. The satellites, which will be part of the European Union’s alternative to the U.S. Global […]

Using a radar instrument on an orbiting spacecraft, scientists have spotted what they said on Wednesday appears to be a sizable salt-laden lake under ice on the southern polar plain of Mars, a body of water they called a possible habitat for microbial life. The reservoir they detected—roughly 12 miles (20 km) in diameter, shaped […]

FARNBOROUGH, England —Britain wants to build its first spaceport for launching satellites in Scotland, with the government kick-starting the project by handing almost £30 million ($40 million) in grants to companies including Lockheed Martin. UK Business Minister Greg Clark said the new site at Sutherland on the northerly-most tip of mainland Scotland would provide facilities […]

Israel is planning to land a spacecraft on the moon in early 2019, scientists announced on Tuesday. Project managers said that the SpaceIL, an unmanned craft built by Israeli engineers, is slated to take off later this year and land on the moon on Feb. 13 next year. Only three nations worldwide have achieved a […]

Scientists have taken the first ever image of a planet in the process of being born, in the dusty disc surrounding a young star. The fledgling planet is a gas giant, several times the size of Jupiter, in the Centaurus constellation. Astronomers led by a group at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy took the […]

On Feb. 6, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its largest rocket into the blue Florida sky. Onboard was “Starman,” a dummy strapped into the billionaire’s cherry red Tesla roadster. Minutes later, fans cheered as Musk topped himself by nailing a simultaneous landing of the Falcon Heavy’s boosters. It was arguably a turning point for the commercial space age. Airlines were somewhat less thrilled. […]