The next satellite tasked with maintaining the "gold standard" measurement of sea-level rise is about to enter final testing.
Sentinel-6a will pick up from the long-running Jason series of spacecraft when it launches in November 2020.
These missions track the height and shape of Earth's oceans with microwave altimeters.
Since 1992, the orbiting instruments have observed sea level go up by an average of 3.2mm per year.
This trend is accelerating, however. The most recent five-year period, from 2014 to 2019, has witnessed a 4.8mm/yr increase.
Sentinel-6a marks the first time this hugely important mission series will fly under the badge of the EU's Copernicus Earth observation programme.
It is still a joint venture between Europe (principally France) and the US, but the Copernicus patronage gives long term security of financing.
Nov 15, 2019
Facebook Removes 5.4 Billion Fake Accounts
Facebook says it has stopped 5.4 billion fake accounts so far this year, in a sign of a persistent battle on social media against manipulation and disinformation.
In its latest transparency report, the Internet firm said it has improved its ability to detect and block attempts to create fake and abusive accounts.
The detailed report also showed that government demands for user information hit a new high led by the US.
Overall, requests by governments for Facebook user data rose 16 per cent to 128,617 in the first half of this year.
NASA probes oxygen mystery on Mars
The oxygen in Martian air is changing in a way that can't currently be explained by known chemical processes.
That's the claim of scientists working on the Curiosity rover mission, who have been taking measurements of the gas.
They discovered that the amount of oxygen in Martian "air" rose by 30% in spring and summer.
The pattern remains a mystery, but researchers are beginning to narrow the possibilities.
While the changes are most likely to be geological in nature, planetary scientists can't completely rule out an explanation involving microbial life.
The results come from nearly six Earth years' (three Martian years') worth of data from the Sample Analysis at Mars (Sam) instrument, a portable chemistry lab in the belly of the Curiosity rover.
Nov 14, 2019
Hayabusa2 Starts Year-Long Journey Home from Asteroid
Hayabusa2, a Japanese spacecraft, has departed from a distant asteroid, starting a year-long journey home after collecting soil samples and data that could provide clues to the origins of the Solar System.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said the Hayabusa2 left its orbit around the asteroid Ryugu, about 180 million miles from Earth.
Hayabusa2 captured and transmitted to Earth one of its final images of Ryugu, or Dragon Palace, named after a sea-bottom castle in a Japanese folk tale, as it slowly began moving away from its temporary home.
NASA gave Ultima Thule a new official name
Ultima Thule is no more. The remote solar system body visited in January 2019 by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft now has a proper name: Arrokoth.
The word means "sky" in the language of the Powhatan people, a Native American tribe indigenous to Maryland.
The state is home to New Horizons mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel.
Nov 13, 2019
NASA Scientists Detect Huge Thermonuclear Blast Deep in Space
NASA recently detected a massive thermonuclear explosion coming from outer space.
The culprit seems to be a distant pulsar, the space agency reports, which is the stellar remains of a star that blew up in a supernova but was too small to form a black hole. NASA spotted the burst because it sent out an intense beam of x-rays that got picked up by the agency's orbital observatory NICER.
All in all, it serves as a potent reminder: space is an extremely dangerous, extremely metal place.
Astronomers think the thermonuclear explosion was caused by helium that sunk beneath the surface of the pulsar and fused into a ball of carbon.
Nov 12, 2019
SpaceX Sends Up 60 Mini-Satellites With Plans For Thousands More
The private SpaceX company launched a second set of mini-satellites as it builds a huge constellation of the small orbiting devices aimed at greatly expanding internet access around the globe.
A Falcon-9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, placed 60 mini-satellites in orbit, joining 60 others launched.
The American company's Starlink network could one day total 42,000 satellites -- resulting in far more crowded skies and raising concerns among some scientists.
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