Free Republic

Concept of an asteroid redirect mission. Credit: NASA ==================================================================================================================================== The grizzled asteroid miner is a stock character in science fiction. Now, a couple of recent events - one legal and the other technological - have brought asteroid mining a step closer to reality. The legal step was taken when the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bill titled H.R. 2262—SPACE Act of 2015. The bill has a number of measures designed to facilitate commercial space development, including a provision that gives individuals or companies ownership of any material that they mine in outer space. According to one estimate,...

ESO's VISTA survey telescope has spied a horde of previously hidden massive galaxies that existed when the Universe was in its infancy. By discovering and studying more of these galaxies than ever before, astronomers have for the first time found out exactly when such monster galaxies first appeared. The newly discovered massive galaxies are marked on this image of the UltraVISTA field. [RED CIRCLES] ================================================================================================================ Astronomers have detected something baffling at the furthest frontiers of our observable universe: massive galaxies -- lots of massive galaxies -- that shouldn't even exist. Depending on the wavelength you observe the universe in,...

This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation known as the SPACE Act of 2015 (The U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act), which recognizes and promotes the rights of U.S. companies to engage in the exploration and extraction of space resources from asteroids and other celestial bodies. That’s a huge win for private space exploration companies, especially for companies with upcoming plans to tap into the economic potential of the moon. That’s because the legislation, in its definition of “space resources,” is sufficiently broad to include resources found on the lunar surface. In short, the moon could now be...

United Launch Alliance said Monday it did not submit a proposal in a competition to launch a U.S. Air Force GPS navigation satellite, apparently relinquishing the contract to rival SpaceX, the only other company certified to launch the mission. The Air Force wanted both companies to bid on the launch, setting up the first competition for the launch of a national security mission since Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their rocket programs in 2006 to form ULA. ULA cited requirements in the request for proposals, which the Air Force released Sept. 30, and a congressionally mandated ban on RD-180 engines...

Phil PlaitNovember 16, 2015 A new study says that violent space weather that could cost $2 trillion in damage is more common than previously thought In the years 774 and 993, the Earth was attacked from space. Not by aliens, but by a natural event—and it was very, very powerful. Whatever it was, it subtly altered the chemistry of our planet’s atmosphere, creating trace amounts of radioactive elements like chlorine-36, beryllium-10, and carbon-14. And those provide the clue to what the event was: Those isotopes are created when high-energy protons slam into our air. That means the source must have...

Click Here

A third mysterious black space object to fall from the sky into rural Spain has caused panic among locals. The strange-looking black orb was found in the village of Villavieja in Murcia - becoming the latest instance of an increasingly bewildering phenomenon, the Olive Press reported. It's not yet known what the objects are, though theories range from UFOs to pieces of space debris. The first instance of the strange phenomenon occurred one week ago, when Spanish goat farmers discovered the strange object, which bears a striking resemblance to the Star Wars torture device, the IT-O Interrogator, in Calasparra, Murcia....

A "UFO was intercepted" by the International Space Station (ISS), claim alien hunters, who allege footage from a NASA live camera feed which zoomed in on a mysterious glowing orb suddenly cut out. The "orb UFO" allegedly monitored by ISS crew ================================================================================================================== A UFO hunter claims the ISS camera locked on and zoomed into a “mystery glowing orb”, but after monitoring the ball of light, Nasa cut the live stream from public viewing. The "Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)" was visible in the distance between the ISS and Earth, according to Scott C Waring, editor of UFO Sightings Daily, before the...

Toronto– A close encounter with Jupiter about four billion years ago may have resulted in another planet’s ejection from the solar system altogether, scientists have found. The existence of a fifth giant gas planet at the time of the solar system’s formation — in addition to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune that we know of today — was first proposed in 2011, researchers said.

The mystery behind a strangely dimming star could soon be solved. Astronomers around the world are keeping a close eye on the star KIC 8462852, which has dimmed dramatically numerous times over the past few years, dropping in brightness by up to 22 percent. These big dips have spurred speculation that the star may be surrounded by some type of alien megastructure — a hypothesis that will be put to the test if and when KIC 8462852 dims again. "As long as one of those events occurs again, we should be able to catch it in the act, and then...

China Just Flew This Gigantic Airship To the Edge Of Space The technology could have communications and military advantages for China. China just flew a 250-foot airship to near the top of the Earth's atmosphere. The solar-powered behemoth can stay airborne for half a year and requires no fuel to get it more than 12 miles into the air—just fill it with helium and let it go; the sun powers it once it reaches its cruising altitude. Airships predate airplanes, but have been largely supplanted by them. However, they remain superior for pretty much anything that doesn’t require the speed...

A comet with the nickname Happy Hour leaves a boozy trail equivalent to "500 bottles of wine per second" in its wake as it shoots through space. Scientists studying the comet, known as Lovejoy, have found its glowing trail is made up of alcohol and sugar. A study published by a group of scientists from NASA and European agencies observed the unusual comet as it rocketed alongside the sun on January 30, NASA reports. "You have alcohol and sugar, so that can lead to a 'happy hour' name, but I would not recommend anyone drink this water," team researcher Darek...

Does Russia Have War Bots in Space? October 22, 2015 By David Axe Quartz Moscow’s latest satellites might be bashing into other orbiting things — on purpose. Space / Russia The world’s major powers follow an unwritten rule when it comes to space exploration: no weapons in orbit. But lately the three leading space nations—the US, China, and Russia—have been accused of ignoring this gentlemen’s agreement. Russia, especially. The accusations involve a trio of Russian satellites that may be “suicide” weapons, devices that can smash into and destroy other satellites. The craft are certainly suspicious. Russia did not announce the...

he European and Russian space agencies are to send a lander to an unexplored area at the Moon's south pole. It will be one of a series of missions that prepares for the return of humans to the surface and a possible permanent settlement. The spacecraft will assess whether there is water, and raw materials to make fuel and oxygen. BBC News has obtained exclusive details of the mission, called Luna 27, which is set for launch in five years' time. The mission is one of a series led by the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, to go back to...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft zoomed by Saturn's icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 14, 2015, capturing this stunning image of the moon's north pole. A companion view from the wide-angle camera shows a zoomed out view of the same region for context. Scientists expected the north polar region of Enceladus to be heavily cratered, based on low-resolution images from the Voyager mission, but high-resolution Cassini images show a landscape of stark contrasts. Thin cracks cross over the pole -- the northernmost extent of a global system of such fractures. Before this Cassini flyby, scientists did not know if the fractures extended so...

Airplane maker Boeing has unveiled what it calls the "The Lightest Metal Ever"—called microlattice, the material is a construct that is 99.99 per cent air. It has been developed by Boeing's HRL Laboratories along with colleagues at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. The material has been developed as a way to reduce weight on airplanes or even rockets—a paper describing the development of the material was written by the team and published in the journal Science back in 2011—though the researchers have not yet revealed what sort of changes have been made since that time....

A forthcoming report by the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission provides new details of China’s space-weapons programs, dubbed counterspace arms, that are aimed at destroying or jamming U.S. satellites and limiting American combat operations around the world. “China is pursuing a broad and robust array of counterspace capabilities, which includes direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital anti-satellite systems, computer network operations, ground-based satellite jammers and directed energy weapons,” a late draft of the commission’s annual report states. “China’s nuclear arsenal also provides an inherent anti-satellite capability.”

The Kepler space telescope's job is to find faraway planets that could potentially support life. But as The Atlantic reports, scientists are exploring the possibility that the telescope may have detected something even more exciting. [...] When a planet passes in front of a star, the star dims only for a few hours or days, and on a regular basis-- every 365 days, for example. But, at irregular intervals, the star KIC 8462852 darkens by as much as 20 percent, and it stays dark for anywhere between 5 and 80 days. What could cause the weird light fluctuations? The researchers...

WASHINGTON — A mysterious Russian military satellite parked itself between two Intelsat satellites in geosynchronous orbit for five months this year, alarming company executives and leading to classified meetings among U.S. government officials. The Russian satellite, alternatively known as Luch or Olymp, launched in September 2014 and seven months later moved to a position directly between the Intelsat 7 and Intelsat 901 satellites, which are located within half a degree of one another 36,000 kilometers above the equator. At times, the Russian satellite maneuvered to about 10 kilometers of the Intelsat space vehicles, sources said, a distance so close that...