space

The JWST Has Spotted Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe

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Like any object, black holes take time to grow and form. And like a 6-foot-tall toddler, Fan’s supersize black holes were too big for their age—the universe wasn’t old enough for them to have accrued billions of suns of heft. To explain those overgrown toddlers, physicists were forced to consider two distasteful options. Decades ago, … Read more

NASA Scientist Flies to Edge of Space for Suborbital Research

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After landing back to Earth from Virgin Galactic’s latest suborbital flight, planetary scientist Alan Stern and science communicator Kellie Gerardi received a ton of text messages from other researchers asking, “How do I get to do that?” The M3 MacBook Pro: Made Dark for Halloween The pair were part of the Galactic 05 mission, which … Read more

Kuva Space raises €16.6M Series A to scale hyperspectral imagery ambitions

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Kuva Space, a hyperspectral imagery startup founded in Finland, has closed a €16.6 million ($17.6 million) Series A funding round as it looks to deploy up to 100 satellites by the end of the decade. The startup, formerly called Reaktor Space Lab, was founded in 2016 and spent its first four years focused on building … Read more

Max Q: ABL Space nears next launch

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Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: ABL Space nears next launch News from SpaceX and more ABL Space Systems has been quiet since the company conducted its first launch attempt in January, which resulted in the rocket crashing back down to Earth a little over 10 seconds after liftoff. Now we know … Read more

Webb telescope probes space explosion and makes fascinating discovery

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Astronomers detected a potent space explosion this year and directed the powerful James Webb Space Telescope at the cosmic blast. This blast was a “gamma-ray burst” containing the most energetic type of light that’s often generated by the collapse and explosion of enormous stars, events called supernovae. But the eruption in March 2023, dubbed “GRB … Read more

ABL Space Systems provides update on the road to second RS1 launch

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ABL Space Systems has been quiet since the company conducted its first launch attempt in January, which resulted in the rocket crashing back down to Earth a little over 10 seconds after lift-off. Now we know why: they have been very, very, very busy. In a detailed blog post on Wednesday, CEO Harry O’Hanley described … Read more

Things Are Looking Up for Asteroid Mining

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Everyone’s into asteroids these days. Space agencies in Japan and the United States recently sent spacecraft to investigate, nudge, or bring back samples from these hurtling space rocks, and after a rocky start, the space mining industry is once again on the ascent. Companies like AstroForge, Trans Astronautica Corporation, and Karman+ are preparing to test … Read more

Three leading space companies agree: No new regulations on human spaceflight

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Three leading space companies told Congress this week that the industry needs time to mature before federal regulators introduce new safety guidelines for human spaceflight — but that existing regulatory processes for launch are in dire need of improvement. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic were all in agreement that the 20-year moratorium on federal … Read more