Hubble Uncovers Concentration of Small Black Holes
New data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have led to the first measurement of the extent of a collection of black holes in a core-collapsed globular cluster.
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Space and time
Browse through our research stories and articles on space and time
China launches GECAM all-sky scanner to study extreme cosmic events
China has successfully launched a space telescope to study some of the most energetic events in the universe. Lifting off today from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. local time, the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) represents one of the first new “all-sky” devices that will monitor fast-radio bursts, high-energy neutrinos and magnetars.
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China’s Chang’e 5 completes docking mission on its way back to Earth
China’s Chang’e-5 mission completed a tricky docking maneuver on Saturday, as it prepares to return the soil samples it collected from the Moon’s surface back to Earth.
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New fuel gauge for spacecraft could keep satellites active for longer
Researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have now developed a solution based on a suite of sensors that detects the capacitance of liquid inside a spacecraft’s fuel tank and uses these data to reconstruct a three-dimensional picture of the remaining fuel.
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SpaceX has launched a second Dragon capsule to the space station
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Cargo Dragon spacecraft will launch Sunday from Kennedy Space Center | SpaceX Update December
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Astronomers reveal most detailed atlas of the Milky Way
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the latest star map of the Milky Way taken by its €450m Gaia mission. Gaia’s third data set, released, contains high-precision measurements of nearly 2 billion stars, allowing astronomers to trace the various populations of older and younger stars out towards the very edge of our galaxy the so-called “galactic anticenter”.
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SpaceX sent a Falcon 9 rocket on its seventh trip to space
On Tuesday night, SpaceX successfully launched another batch of the company’s internet-from-space Starlink satellites to orbit, using a very space-hardened Falcon 9 rocket for the job. This launch marked the rocket’s seventh flight to space and back — the first time SpaceX has flown such a seasoned vehicle to orbit.
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Borexino spots solar neutrinos from elusive fusion cycle
Neutrinos produced by the elusive carbon–nitrogen–oxygen (CNO) cycle in the Sun have been observed for the first time – confirming a theory first proposed over 80 years ago. The observation was made by physicists working on Italy’s Borexino detector and provides an important insight into how stars power themselves by converting hydrogen into helium.
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Rocket Lab successfully brings its rocket back to Earth underneath a parachute
After launching one of its rockets to orbit on Thursday, small satellite launcher Rocket Lab successfully brought the vehicle back to Earth and landed it gently in the ocean underneath a series of parachutes.
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NASA to launch satellite to track rising sea levels
NASA plans to launch a satellite that will follow the effects of climate change on the world’s oceans and gather data to improve weather forecasts. The satellite will continue NASA’s three decades-long work to document rising sea levels and will give scientists a more precise view of the coastlines than they’ve ever had from space.
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