The Breakthrough Listen project concludes a partnership with the VERITAS observatory – News of July 23, 2019 – The quest for an intelligent extraterrestrial life is an activity that is often summed up by the acronym SETI. Since we have measured the size of the cosmos and have the tools to study it, it seems…
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The Brazilian space agency wants to open a commercial spaceport – News of July 21, 2019 – Space programs of rising powers such as China and India are regularly mentioned. Although there is a Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), Brazil does not yet have such a developed space program. But as the ninth world economy, Brazil…
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Discovering of the asteroid that orbits the fastest around the sun – News of July 21, 2019 – 2019 LF6 is a very small asteroid whose discovery was announced at the beginning of July 2019. Its very short period of revolution makes it special. This piece of rock barely a kilometer in diameter orbits the…
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How was the thick atmosphere of Titan formed ? – News of July 21, 2019 – Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. However, there is still no consensus on the cause of this exception. The large quantities of nitrogen found there could be brought in the form of…
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France announces the creation of its “Space Force”, a space commandment – News of July 16, 2019 – In a speech to the Armed Forces pronounced on July 13, french president Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of a space commandment within the air force, charged to ensure the deployment of a new doctrine that takes…
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The University of Colorado Boulder develops a small gravity simulator for space – News of July 9, 2019 – Prolonged weightlessness has a significant impact on human health. Nausea, muscle and bone loss, redistribution of fluids, impaired vision or sensation of loss of taste, for example. After a few weeks of terrestrial orbit aboard the…
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The Dragonfly mission will fly towards Titan in 2026 – News of July 2, 2019 – It was one of the most anticipated decisions in 2019. The US Space Agency had to choose between two candidates for the fourth mission of the New Frontiers program. NASA can only fund one of them. The first mission…
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For the first time, the source of a unique fast radio burst has been identified – News of July 2, 2019 – In 2007, while digging into old archives of the Parkes observatory in Australia, a student made a strange discovery. The radio telescope appeared to have recorded a very short radio burst in 2001…
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The Comet Interceptor mission will study comets very closely – News of July 2, 2019 – ESA has just validated a new mission for the next decade as part of its Cosmic Vision program. This mission is called Comet Interceptor. Since its creation, ESA has specialized in comet exploration. Thanks to this new mission, the…
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The Curiosity rover detects a powerful methane peak on the planet Mars – News of June 25, 2019 – We often talk about methane detection on the planet Mars. On Earth, methane is a gas associated with life. In the atmosphere of the planet Mars, it is easily broken by the ultraviolet radiation of the…
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Postponement of Spektr-RG space observatory launch due to discharged batteries – News of June 25, 2019 – Since the fall of the Sovietic Union, Russia’s economic difficulties have canceled most major scientific programs. That’s why the launch of the Spektr-RG space observatory by a Proton rocket that was planned last Friday is very important. The…
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Falcon Heavy achieves a difficult mission for the US Army – News of June 25, 2019 – The Falcon Heavy has just flown for the third time, less than three months after its previous flight. The mission seems to have gone well. The two side boosters that had already been retrieved during the previous launch…
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The development of the Psyche space probe continues – News of June 18, 2019 – The Psyche mission will be launched in 2022. It will explore the asteroid that bears the same name, an asteroid almost entirely composed of iron and nickel. We think that this is the heart of a protoplanet that has disappeared.…
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The study of the salinity of Europa’s oceans could tell us if life is possible – News of June 18, 2019 – In the late 1990s, the Galileo mission taught us that Europa, one of Jupiter‘s largest moon, is probably home to an ocean of liquid water under its ice crust. Its magnetic field, its…
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TransAstra selected by NASA’s NIAC program – News of June 18, 2019 – NASA has announced the selection of projects for its NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. It allows for preliminary research on technologies that could dramatically change how we use space. Participants in the 2019 edition were revealed on June 11th. It includes…
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OSIRIS-REx orbits less than one kilometer from Bennu – News of June 18, 2019 – The solar system continues to reveal its secrets. Comets and asteroids are exploration targets increasingly studied by space agencies. NASA has thus dedicated the OSIRIS-REx space probe to the asteroid Bennu, a Type C near-Earth object of about 500 meters…
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ESA is very active regarding its lunar program – News of June 11, 2019 – The Moon exploration is very trendy nowadays. More than a dozen public and private entities plan to land robots on the Moon in the next five years. Three manned flight programs are under development in the United States, China and…
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The star HR9024 loses weight due to incredible coronal mass ejections – News of June 11, 2019 – Observed from afar, the sun may seem like a shiny, smooth ball. Modern astronomy has shown that in reality the surface of our star is covered with bubbles and filaments, some of which may be absolutely gigantic.…
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Starshade could help space telescopes to observe exoplanets – News of June 9, 2019 – To observe exoplanets is very difficult. We must work on contrasts. The stars are indeed much brighter than their planets. Ideally, it is much easier to be able to hide the light of the star to focus only on the…
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Tiangong 1, the first Chinese space station – News of June 9, 2019 – The history of Chinese manned flight is quite short, but it is already very interesting. After designing the Shenzhou spacecraft, China began building space stations. Tiangong 1 was launched in September 2011. It consisted of a service module and a pressurized…
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Relativity Space will print rockets for $ 10 million – News of June 9, 2019 – Relativity Space is one of the companies developing rockets for Smallsats. Their launcher is called Terran 1. It is a little more imposing than the average launchers. It must be able to place up to a ton of low…
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Satellite mega-constellations : big opportunities and big worries – News of June 6, 2019 – In recent months, a Soyuz rocket and a Falcon 9 have put into orbit the first satellites of two huge constellations, OneWeb and Starlink who are racing to set up satellite internet services. They will soon be joined by Amazon…
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Still no date for a second launch of Long March 5 – News of May 28, 2019 – China has an ambitious lunar program. In recent years, the Chinese Space Agency has implemented an impressive robotic program. But like everyone else, China is facing failures. Last Thursday, a Long March 4C rocket and its payload…
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Giant galaxies put the size of the Milky Way in perspective – News of May 28, 2019 – In comparison to the dwarf galaxies that surround us, the Milky Way and Andromeda may seem immense. Their diameter is indeed spread over hundreds of thousands of light-years. But if you search the whole observable universe, you…
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Jérôme Vila leads ArianeWorks, the entity charged by CNES and Arianegroup to imagine and prepare the future European launchers ! Jérôme tells us about his career, the goals of ArianeWorks and projects carried by the initiative. Then he answers your questions and delivers us his Top 10 for space enthusiasts. Ready to take off ?…
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ISRO unveils its space program for the 2020s – News of May 21, 2019 – ISRO, the Indian space agency, has achieved feats despite a very limited budget. It succeeded in a lunar mission and a Martian mission. A second mission to the Moon will leave in July 2019. More ambitious than the first lunar…
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Italian researchers succeed in interfering with antimatter – News of May 21, 2019 – In 1923, the French physicist Louis de Broglie published a surprising article. He formulates the hypothesis that matter has an associated wave. Over the next few years, this was confirmed when researchers succeeded in interfering with electrons, protons and even whole…
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Virgin Galactic to move to Spaceport America – News of May 14, 2019 – Virgin Galactic will soon be offering customers a few minutes in space for the price of a home. The company has demonstrated such an inhabited flight several times in recent months. To move on to market its project, Virgin Galactic will…
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New Shepard is a fully reusable rocket system consisting of a capsule and a booster. The booster returns to land thanks to its rocket engine while the capsule is equipped with a parachute. The vehicle’s capabilities make it possible to place the capsule in a state of microgravity for three minutes, which should seduce not…
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SpaceX mishaps hinder CCDeV program – News of May 14, 2019 – The CCDeV program entrusts private companies with the design of the future American manned spacecrafts. This program was halted a few weeks ago with the explosion during a test phase SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule. And we just learned that the Crew Dragon…
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