satellites

This ‘disco ball’ is the densest object orbiting the solar system

Called LARES, this tiny — but remarkably heavy — satellite both looks and acts like a disco ball. By bouncing lasers off its reflectors, Italian researchers are hoping to prove Einstein’s conjecture that the Earth warps space-time as it rotates. One important aspect of general relativity is an effect called rotational-frame dragging, or the Lense-Thirring…

Even Boring Weather Is Stunning Through a Satellite’s Eyes

This dynamic GIF of the Earth was created by images captured by the GOES-14 weather satellite on May 22. There’s nothing outstanding about the weather report on this particular day, but look at how the GIF shows our blue marble moving and breathing in black and white. Lovely! Launched in 2009, GOES-14 is part of…

A Dead Satellite Could Ruin Weather–And Tornado–Prediction For Years

While extreme weather events seem to come and go more often than ever, our ability to forecast them does at least help us minimize risk to human life. But an impending weather satellite outage could make events like yesterday’s devestating tornado even harder to predict—for up to three years. http://gawker.com/the-biggest-most-destructive-tornado-in-history-just-508956719 The US relies on two…

This Is Earth As Seen By Smartphone Satellites

A few months ago, NASA sent some Nexus Ones into space to see if a smartphone could hold its own against the million dollar satellites already up there. The answer is “not exactly.” When it comes to photography, it’s probably best to stick with the space-professionals. The trio of smartphone satellites coordinated to take hundreds…

How NASA’s Fermi Telescope Sidestepped a Gigantic Space Crash

There’s all kinds of asteroids and other debris cruising through space, but a lot of the really dangerous stuff is stuff we put there ourselves. NASA’s cosmic bubble-spotting Fermi telescope almost had an intergalactic fender bender, but not with some epoch-old rock floating through the cosmos. No, it almost got crushed by some Cold War-era…

How the US Built Its Super-Secret Spy Satellite Program

Ethics aside, espionage is an indispensable part of statecraft. The ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] information gathered helps steer national policy decisions for everything from mundane trade negotiations to the blackest of ops. And nowhere is this more evident than in the development of the US spy satellite fleet during the Cold War. These orbital…

The Very First Picture of Earth Beamed From Outer Space

What with today’s fancy Doppler radars and forecast graphics and fear mongering, it’s refreshing to get a glimpse of the relative simplicity in man’s very first attempt at remotely monitoring the shifts in Earth’s climate. After capturing the above images on April 1, 1960, TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite) only stayed in operation for 78…

NASA’s Laser Satellite Could Deliver Fiber Optic Speeds from Lunar Orbit

For all of their advanced technologies, modern satellites still rely on low-bandwidth radio transmitters to communicate with ground control. But they could soon be upgraded to beyond broadband speeds once NASA’s new laser-based communication system prototype gets off the ground. The comm system, dubbed the Lunar Lasercom Space Terminal (LLST), is the result of the…

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Left the Solar System (Updated)

For the very first time, a man-made object has reached the cosmic abyss beyond the farthest reaches of our solar system. As of today, Voyager 1 is the first spacecraft to begin the endless journey into deep space. Launched way back on September 5th, 1977, Voyager 1 has been blasting along towards the edges of…

This satellite can detect earthquakes from space

Some earthquakes are so powerful they can actually be felt up in space. Looking to take advantage of this phenomenon, a group of researchers have created the world’s first seismometer in orbit around the Earth. Well, to be more accurate, they’re re-purposing a satellite originally designed to measure gravity fields on our planet’s surface. It’s…

What’s a Starquake? The World’s Tiniest Telescopes Launch Today to Find Out

Despite being among the brightest and easily identified clusters in the night sky, the trio of stars in Orion’s Belt are actually among the least studied in astronomy. That’s partly because the huge, far-seeing telescopes typically sent into space are designed to spot only the dimmest, most distant stars. But Orion’s Belt will finally get…

This machine helped predict the weekend’s giant blizzard

All up and down the east coast of North America, news of an incoming blizzard has been brewing for days. Before it hit, people from New York and Connecticut to Ontario knew in advance to expect over a foot of snow. We take this kind of accurate forecasting for granted, but we shouldn’t. Our ability…

UK Scientists Are Launching a Satellite Powered By… a Google Nexus One?

A team of scientists from the University of Surrey, UK, are excitedly putting the finishing touches to their latest satellite, called STRaND-1. Due to launch on February 25th, the hi-tech beast is powered by… a Google Nexus One? The satellite, which measures 12 inches in length and weighs just 10 pounds, will be launched into…

The Hi-C Suborbital Spacecraft Snaps the Sun’s Hottest Spots

The Sun’s corona—essentially its plasma “atmosphere”—is actually hotter than the surface of the star itself. Scientists have long suspected that the region’s million-degree temperatures influence its massive magnetic fields, and have hypothesized that solar flares originate there. But researchers had never been able to observe these phenomena first-hand—until now. The High Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C)…

This Is How DARPA Will Strip Old Satellites for Parts

There’s a bunch of junk orbiting the Earth right now, a bunch of junk that we put there. But not all of the old satellites that are zooming around the planet are totally useless; plenty still have good stuff in them that could be reused and DARPA wants to start mining them. The project is…

DARPA’s SeeMe Satellites Are a Soldier’s On-Demand Eye In the Sky

While UAVs have joined spy satellites as an indispensable part of America’s military operations—especially in delivering timely, accurate intel to troops on the ground—they are not the end-all-be-all perfect solution, even in coordination. That’s why DARPA plans to supplement these unmanned intelligence gathering platforms with jet-deployed constellations of micro-satellites. Soon, every grunt will have access…

Obama’s signed a bill stating that communications satellites are no longer classed as weapons. Who knew? [NYT]

These Astounding Satellite Images Were the Best Bird’s-Eye-Views of 2012

Our daily does of satellite imagery through services like Google Maps have made looking down at Earth seem rather hum-drum at times. But there are still magical and majestic sites to be hold, as seen in this selection from 2012. DigitalGlobe recently announced their Best of 2012 picks out of their vast archive of images.…

Watch NASA Livestream Its Two Lunar Satellites Slam Into the Moon Tonight (Update: Here We Go!)

Twin NASA orbiters Ebb and Flow have done a fantastic job of mapping lunar gravity at accuracy down to the micron, but that job is over now. The pair won’t get to go into any sort of retirement though; instead, tonight, they’ll fly straight into the moon. And NASA’s going to livestream it. Here’s where…

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un celebrates rocket launch with a smoke

Two days ago, North Korea finally lobbed a weather satellite into orbit, officially marking their entry into space. And as if to say, “About freakin TIME,” a photograph has emerged showing Kim Jong-un enjoying a post-launch cigarette moments after the rocket was launched. Other pictures show Kim wishing his generals good luck just prior to…