Six out of seven, done.
The James Webb Space Telescope has almost completed its preparations in space before collecting its first scientific observations this summer, NASA reveals.
Category: space
A U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts safely landed in Kazakhstan after leaving the International Space Station aboard the same capsule despite heightened antagonism between Moscow and Washington over the conflict in Ukraine.
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JWST recently snapped this infrared test image of a star, which also shows fainter background stars and galaxies — a testament to the telescope’s power.
In early February, NASA engineers began to remotely align the 18 hexagonal segments of the James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror, which had been folded away for launch. The goal of this meticulous, three-month-long process is to perfectly position the mirror segments relative to each other, creating a single, smooth, 6.5-meter-wide surface that can gather and focus light from the distant cosmos.
You may recall earlier snapshots that marked previous milestones. For example, the second of seven milestones was punctuated with a shot taken before the mirrors were fully aligned; it featured multiple images of a single star. Now, NASA has announced the fifth major alignment milestone is complete. Called fine phasing, this step helped to identify and correct small differences between individual mirror segments to bring the infrared universe into sharp, clear focus.
Alpha Centauri seems almost within grasp as promising research soars into reality.
Lightsails were once a thing of science fiction, evolving through several variations over the last 40 years. Now, science fiction is becoming reality. Advances in laser technology and new ultrastrong, ultralight materials open up the possibility of venturing beyond our solar system in the not-too-distant future.
Researchers from UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania recently published two papers outlining various shapes and heat-dissipating materials they tested to evaluate lightsails beyond previous limits. The research was conducted in conjunction with the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a project with the goal of sending a microchip-sized probe to the Alpha Centauri system, which, at just over 4 light-years away, is the closest and possibly most habitable neighboring star system. Breakthrough Starshot plans to use a high-powered laser array to propel tiny lightsail probes through space at a top speed of some 20 percent the speed of light. Incorporated into the sails would be minuscule scientific instruments, such as cameras, magnetometers, and communicators that could beam information back to Earth as they fly through the Alpha Centuari system.
A parachute that can withstand the heat
Axiom Space has bold plans to send private citizens into space, as a stepping stone to developing a complete private space station.
A 50-year-old woman was buried with a unique “male” pendant.
Archaeologists have discovered a large burial mound in the Siberian “Valley of the Kings” dating to more than 2,500 years ago. The ancient tomb holds the remains of five people, including those of a woman and toddler who were buried with an array of grave goods, such as a crescent moon-shaped pendant, bronze mirror and gold earrings.
The mounds were made by the Scythians — a term used to describe culturally-related nomadic groups that lived on the steppes between the Black Sea and China from about 800 B.C. to about A.D. 300.
As humanity’s spaceward expansion accelerates in the coming decades, somebody’s going to have to keep all those commercial astronauts alive.
What a time to be alive… We are on the verge of discovering the fifth dimension and it will change everything we know about the Universe.
Scientists are sometimes questioned if they conduct fresh experiments in the lab or continue to repeat previous ones for which they have certain outcomes. While most scientists undertake the former, scientific advancement also relies on conducting the latter and validating whether what we think we know remains true in light of fresh knowledge.
In a new photo of the International Space Station, you can actually make out two astronauts clambering on its exterior during a space walk.
The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a single star whose light has traveled for 12.9 billion years to Earth, having come from a universe just 900 million years old. It’s currently the most distant star known, and the team has dubbed it Earendel*.
The discovery is a huge jump, as the previous record-holder for more distant star existed in a universe 4 billion years old.
The iconic observatory had some help from nature’s own optics: The vast mass of a foreground cluster of galaxies, sitting just so between us and the distant star, acts like a lens, its gravity magnifying the star’s light thousands-fold. The discovery is published in the March 31st Nature.