Sara Susca, deputy payload manager and payload systems engineer for NASA’s SPHEREx mission, looks up at one of the spacecraft’s photon shields. These concentric cones protect the telescope from light…
Category: Space
NASA’s ‘Occult’ Science For Weather Forecasters
Radio occultation, pioneered by NASA for other planets, offers cheaper, better Earth weather data. Spire Global currently has the most radio occultation satellites in orbit, having outfitted 40 of its…
Astronomers are hoping to detect gravitational waves coming from supernova 1987A
Hubble Space Telescope image of SN1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Credit: NASA A supernova explosion is a cataclysmic explosion that marks the violent end of a massive star’s life.…
Record-Breaking Black Hole Discovered by NASA Telescopes
Astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole yet seen in X-rays, using NASA telescopes. The black hole is at an early stage of growth that had never been witnessed…
The Oldest Known X-ray Quasar Identified
Yale’s Priyamvada Natarajan and colleagues have identified the oldest known X-ray quasar — offering compelling proof of a concept Natarajan helped pioneer. Astronomers have found the oldest-known X-ray quasar in…
Civilizations could use gravitational lenses to transmit power from star to star
Gravitational lens GAL-CLUS-022058s. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Space Telescope In 1916, famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein put the finishing touches on his theory of general relativity, a geometric theory for how gravity…
Space Program Pumps Up Turbomachinery
These turbopumps are used in the NewtonThree engine from the first stage of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket. Produced by Barber-Nichols and similar in design and principle to pumps originally made…
