Tomonori Totani, an astrobiologist with the University of Tokyo is proposing that the search for life beyond Earth be expanded to the study of space dust. In his paper published in the journal International Journal of Astrobiology, ...
A quartet of researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada has calculated that the risk of one or more people being killed by uncontrolled rocket descents over the next decade is approximately 10%. In their ...
In the early solar system, terrestrial planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are thought to have formed from planetesimals, small early planets. These early planets grew over time, through collisions and mergers, to ...
Astronomy
Sep 1, 2021
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Space is getting crowded. Aging satellites and space debris crowd low-Earth orbit, and launching new satellites adds to the collision risk. The most effective way to solve the space junk problem, according to a new study, ...
Space Exploration
May 25, 2020
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How did the Red Planet get all of its clouds? CU Boulder researchers may have discovered the secret: just add meteors.
Space Exploration
Jun 17, 2019
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Bumper car-like interactions at the edges of our solar system—and not a mysterious ninth planet—may explain the dynamics of strange bodies called "detached objects," according to a new study.
Astronomy
Jun 4, 2018
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Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to uncover a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow, inner ring of dust is already known to encircle ...
Astronomy
Mar 6, 2018
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The most likely source of the water locked inside soils on the moon's surface is the constant stream of charged particles from the sun known as the solar wind, a University of Michigan researcher and his colleagues have concluded.
Space Exploration
Oct 14, 2012
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2
About 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system was little more than a tenuous disk of gas and dust. In the span of merely 10 million years, this soup evolved to form today's massive, complex planets. In the intervening period, ...
Space Exploration
Oct 11, 2012
16
0
A piece of space debris narrowly missed the International Space Station on Tuesday in a rare incident that forced the six-member crew to scramble to their rescue craft, space agency officials said.
Space Exploration
Jun 28, 2011
6
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Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by humans, and that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust, and slag from solid rocket motors, coolant released by RORSAT nuclear powered satellites, deliberate insertion of small needles, and other small particles. Clouds of very small particles may cause erosive damage, like sandblasting. Space "junk" has become a growing concern in recent years, since collisions at orbital velocities can be highly damaging to functional satellites and can also produce even more space debris in the process. This is called the Kessler Syndrome. Some spacecraft, like the International Space Station, are now armored to mitigate damage from this hazard. Astronauts on space-walks are also vulnerable.
The first major space debris collision was on February 10, 2009 at 16:56 UTC. The deactivated Kosmos-2251 and an operational Iridium 33 collided 789 kilometres (490 mi) over northern Siberia. The relative speed of impact was about 11.7 kilometres per second (7.3 mi/s), or approximately 42,120 kilometres per hour (26,170 mph). Both satellites were destroyed. The collision scattered considerable debris, which poses an elevated risk to spacecraft.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
