Space

Once again, the “Land Down Under” is on the apparent uptick for falling space debris. In early July, the Australian Space Agency reported that objects recovered, dubbed “space balls,” are likely pressure vessels from a space launch vehicle. Six spherical pieces of space junk were found in the small seaside community of Forrest Beach, near Ingham. Australian Queensland Fire…

For the first time, astronomers have reconstructed the magnetic field of an entire cluster of galaxies, from its central nucleus to its outer limits. The record-breaking achievement is the product of the deepest-ever observations of the galaxy cluster Abell 2255, located around a billion light-years away — and those observations are thanks to the European radio telescope LOFAR (Low Frequency…

A bright “Saturn’s ring” of satellites could circle the night sky if plans to launch a million data center spacecraft and tens of thousands of space mirrors come to pass. This ring, traversing the sky for hours after dusk and before dawn, would outshine every star and planet, and be visible from every spot on Earth. Hugh Lewis, a professor of astronautics at the University of…

The most powerful solar storms to strike Earth may pack a bigger punch than scientists realized, according to a new study that suggests the impacts of extreme space weather have been underestimated. Researchers found evidence that the apparent upper limit on Earth’s response to the strongest solar storms may be an artifact of how solar wind has been measured rather than a true physical…