GSAT-30: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch 'GSAT-30' from French Guiana on January 17, 2020. The launch of the communication satellite will be ISRO's first satellite launch of the year 2020.
GSAT-30 communication satellite will be launched aboard Ariane 5 launch vehicle (VA 251) from French Guiana at 2:35 am IST on January 17. The satellite with an approximate weight of 3357 kg will have a mission life of more than 15 years.
GSAT 30 will serve as a replacement to INSAT-4A spacecraft services with enhanced coverage. The satellite will be launched along with the European Space Company's telecommunication satellite- Eutelsat Konnect.
Jan 14, 2020
New NASA Discovery Is One Special World
When scientists search for alien planets, they get a special thrill when they find one that seems to reflect our own world back to us.
TOI 700 d is the newest member of that elite club. The planet was discovered courtesy of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, as one of three worlds in a distant solar system. Unlike its neighbors — and the vast majority of planets scientists have identified so far — it seems to be about the same size as Earth and to orbit its star at a distance that would allow water to remain liquid on its surface. The discovery was announced here on Jan. 6 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
As an Earth-size planet in its star's habitable zone, TOI 700 d is a big deal for scientists.
This Ancient Stardust Is The Oldest Ever To Be Examined In a Lab
Ancient stardust extracted from a meteorite contains specks that are up to about 3 billion years older than the solar system, making them the oldest solids ever dated in a lab.
Unlike most of the other stardust that went into building our solar system, these microscopic grains have remained intact since they were shed by aging stars billions of years ago. The exotic makeup of the silicon carbide grains, from a meteorite that landed in Australia more than 50 years ago, tipped scientists off that the minerals were older than the solar system (SN: 11/22/19).
Measuring levels of neon-21 in dozens of grains revealed how much older. Neon-21 is a form of the chemical element that builds up when silicon carbide is bombarded with high-energy particles called galactic cosmic rays in interstellar space. The higher a grain's neon-21 concentration, the longer it must have drifted in space before being embedded in a hunk of space rock during the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago.
Jan 11, 2020
Hubble Detects Smallest Known Dark Matter Clumps
Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and a new observing technique, astronomers have found that dark matter forms much smaller clumps than previously known. This result confirms one of the fundamental predictions of the widely accepted "cold dark matter" theory.
All galaxies, according to this theory, form and are embedded within clouds of dark matter. Dark matter itself consists of slow-moving, or "cold," particles that come together to form structures ranging from hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the Milky Way galaxy to clumps no more massive than the heft of a commercial airplane. (In this context, "cold" refers to the particles' speed.)
The Hubble observation yields new insights into the nature of dark matter and how it behaves. "We made a very compelling observational test for the cold dark matter model and it passes with flying colors," said Tommaso Treu of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a member of the observing team.
Jan 10, 2020
Titanic Wave Of Star-Forming Gases Found In Milky Way
Astronomers have discovered a titanic wave of star-forming gases practically right under our noses in the Milky Way.
Harvard University scientists reported Tuesday that this massive structure has been hiding out in the Milky Way galaxy's spiral arm closest to Earth.
The researchers were building a 3-D map of our galaxy's interstellar matter, using a star census gathered by Europe's Gaia spacecraft when they spotted the wave-shaped structure.
It's an astounding 50 quadrillion miles (85 quadrillion kilometres) long and it's home to tens of thousands of baby stars, with the potential for countless more stellar births, according to the paper published in the journal Nature.
Jan 09, 2020
ISRO To Launch IDRSS Satellites For Seamless Crew Communication
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced that it aims to launch its own satellite pair for space communication purposes, called Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS).
IDRSS is already being worked on, and will be pivotal in maintaining communication with the astronaut crew and ground mission control at any given phase, during manned space missions.
The two satellites, which will be deployed in phases, are already being worked on by ISRO.
The second satellite will be launched in 2021, before the manned mission is embarked upon in 2022.
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