satellites

Weather satellite update

With the successful launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite in February, we’re one step closer to a tasty new data stream on rain and snow around the world. Don’t get too giddy though, weather geeks. The anticipated gap in polar weather data is looming as the current satellites reach end-of-life and the replacement satellite…

A New Defense Department Satellite Shoots Out Smaller Sats

The unfolding drama between Russia and the Ukraine along the Crimean peninsula is developing, rapidly and unpredictably—certainly not in-sync with the orbits of our overhead surveillance assets. But if we could somehow get a few purpose-built (and presumably rapidly-prototyped) cube sats up there, the US Air Force could place extra eyes in the sky on-demand,…

Watching Planes Land From Space Is Like a Video Game Brought to Life

Ever wanted to watch the world—in real-time HD—from space? Well prepare to experience what it’d be life if the world was your very own video game and check out a few planes landing at the Bejiing airport. It’ll be the coolest planespotting you’ve ever done. What you see here is Skybox’s SkySat-1 turning its amazing…

The Ultimate Whale Watching Vessel Isn’t a Boat—It’s a Satellite

Whale watching: you’re out there on the water with salt spray in your face and wind in your hair, waiting for a gigantic sea mammal to surface and do something splashy. It seems like a touristy thing to do, but scientists actually track whale populations from that very same vantage point. Sea level’s cool and…

This Insanely Loud Sound System Can Actually Kill You

Being shot into space puts spacecraft under extreme stress—but did you know that the sound of the rocket launch can damage a craft? Inside the Large European Acoustic Facility, engineers recreate the incredible noise of a launch to make sure satellites can survive it. According to the ESA, “no human could survive” the sound. First…

This Gravity-Sensing Satellite Peeks Beneath the Earth’s Surface

The European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite has been on a quest to study the Earth’s interior, from space. Now the results are in, and a pioneering effort to map the Earth’s gravitational field in high detail, has just been published in the journal Nature Geoscience. It’s giving researchers an unprecedented look at our planet’s mantle.…

We have liftoff. NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite launches from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas-V rocket on Thursday night. Photo by Ed Dosado/Flickr.

EMA: Satellites

EMA’s droney, esoteric music doesn’t fit easily in boxes, but her latest fuzzed out abstraction, “Satellites,” lends itself quite well to the batshit video she made for it. It’s totally DIY, and features some queasy eyeball closeups. Also, is that an Oculus Rift? Yes it is. EMA posted a little behind the scenes information about…

How Swarms of Tiny Satellites Are Creating a Real-Time Google Earth

Google Earth is an amazing resource, but if there’s one criticism that can be leveled at it, it’s that it’s permanently out of date due to the lag between when the data is acquired and when it appears online. But right now, a pair of Californian startups are putting swarms of tiny satellites into space,…

Cloudy With a Chance of Space Weather

Worried about an important satellite transmission? The UK’s Meteorological Office will begin offering daily space weather forecasts to warn against solar storms that can knock out power grids, radios, and satellite-based tech like GPS. Solar storm activity follows a 11-year cycle, and we’re approaching a maximum right now. [BBC] Image courtesy of NASA

Why China’s lunar landing could mean more satellite launches

China’s first lunar-landing over the weekend brings the total number of nations to achieve a soft-landing on the moon up to three — but it could also mean a jump in the number of the number of satellites (both media and military) circling overhead. Today, Rana Mitter, from the University of Oxford, joined us to…

Inside the Incredible, Complex Factories Where Satellites Are Born

Greg White has shot some of the most remote and unusual places in the world. The UK photographer has published photo essays on Chernobyl, Svalbard, and even CERN. But for his latest project, he discovered an alien world within the ordinary confines of his home country: The labs where satellites are built. Working under commission…

The Fukushima Earthquake Actually Changed Earth’s Gravity

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake, which caused the tsunami behind the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown, disrupted more than man-made structures. The European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite, measured a significant change in Earth’s gravity after the earthquake before falling out of the skyon November 11th. The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, launched in 2009, collected…

When and Where To Watch Tonight’s Minotaur Rocket Launch

Twenty-nine tiny satellites are tightening their seat belts as they prepare to be launched into space aboard the Minotaur 1 rocket this evening. According to Space.com, the launch will create a “spectacular sight” for a huge swath of the East Coast. Where should you peep it? https://gizmodo.com/first-satellite-built-by-high-school-kids-is-heading-to-1467640783 The Minotaur 1 will be setting off from…

First Satellite Built by High School Kids Is Heading to Space Tonight

Your coolest high school science project probably involved some baking soda and a paper mâché volcano, right? A little chemical reaction and a big mess? Well, kids these days are smarter than you. They’re building satellites and sending them to space. Students from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia,…

This Mobile Maritime Launch Pad Puts Satellites in Orbit for Less

When it comes to orbital launch positioning, the Earth has something of a sweet spot: the equator. Like a gigantic planetary baseball bat, rockets jump off the Earth’s center-line with ease, able to enter geostationary orbits using a fraction of the energy required anywhere else on the planet. But the problem is that there isn’t…

Your planet is beautiful

Wind-sharpened jaws of sand are closing around the uncertain foam of the river. This gorgeous shot is via the European Space Agency’s Observing the Earth archive. Here’s what the ESA has to say about this: Korea’s Kompsat-2 satellite captured this image over the sand seas of the Namib Desert on 7 January 2012. The blue…

Why Is China Testing Satellite-Hijacking Space Weapons?

Last week, China tested out a satellite that’s capable of grabbing and capturing other satellites as they orbit the Earth. This normally wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that it amounts to China conducting a weapons test in space. And that’s worrisome—especially to the Pentagon. So what’s up with this space weapons test? First…

The Space-Based Internet Relay That Will Torch Google Fiber Has Launched

With an average global broadband connection speed of just 3.1 Mbps, the internet has become one enormous bottleneck for those that send large amounts of data across it. At that speed, a 100 GB file would take around three days to transfer completely, eons too long in a digital era measured by millisecond pings. But…

DARPA Wants a Spacejet That Makes Drones Look Like Paper Planes

Putting satellites into orbit is no easy task, especially with the demise of the Space Shuttle program. Which is why DARPA’s going to make itself a spacejet. Current satellite launch methods require massive, multi-month lead times prior to take-off and are astronomically expensive to undertake—we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars per flight. A spacejet,…