Space & Exploration

Starlink’s Satellites Will be Orbiting at a Much Lower Altitude, Reducing the Risks of Space Junk

Starlink’s Satellites Will be Orbiting at a Much Lower Altitude, Reducing the Risks of Space Junk

Among Elon Musk’s many plans for the future, one of the more ambitious has been the creation of a constellation of satellites that will offer broadband internet access to the entire world. Known as “Starlink”, the company’s long-term plan is to deploy over 12,000 internet satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) by the mid-2020s.

Dark Matter Detector Finds the Rarest Event Ever Seen in the Universe

Since the 1960s, scientists have theorized that the Universe is filled with a mysterious, invisible mass. Known as “dark matter“, this mass is estimated to make up roughly 85% of the matter in the Universe and a quarter of its energy density. While this mass has been indirectly observed and studied, all attempts at determining its true nature have so far failed.

A Strange Ice Feature Wraps Halfway Around Titan

A Strange Ice Feature Wraps Halfway Around Titan

For people interested in all things beyond Earth, the words methane and Titan go hand in hand. After all, Titan is the only other world in our Solar System where liquid flows over the surface. While trying to understand Titan’s methane cycle, scientists have discovered something else: a bizarre methane ice feature that wraps halfway around Saturn’s largest moon.

Scientists Planning Now for Asteroid Flyby a Decade Away

Scientists Planning Now for Asteroid Flyby a Decade Away

On April 13, 2029, a speck of light will streak across the sky, getting brighter and faster. At one point it will travel more than the width of the full Moon within a minute and it will get as bright as the stars in the Little Dipper. But it won't be a satellite or an airplane - it will be a 1,100-foot-wide (340-meter-wide) near-Earth asteroid called 99942 Apophis that will cruise harmlessly by Earth, about 19,000 miles (31,000 kilometers) above the surface. That's within the distance that some of our spacecraft that orbit Earth.

How did the moon end up where it is?

How did the moon end up where it is?

Nearly 50 years since man first walked on the moon, the human race is once more pushing forward with attempts to land on the Earth’s satellite. This year alone, China has landed a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the moon, while India is close to landing a lunar vehicle, and Israel continues its mission to touch down on the surface, despite the crash of its recent venture. NASA meanwhile has announced it wants to send astronauts to the moon’s south pole by 2024.

As Expected, the Newly Upgraded LIGO is Finding a Black Hole Merger Every Week

In February of 2016, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the first-ever detection of gravitational waves (GWs). Since then, multiple events have been detected, providing insight into a cosmic phenomena that was predicted over a century ago by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.