Mysterious Radio Waves Emitted From Nearby Galaxy

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

"We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK.

The thing appeared in May last year, while Muxlow and his colleagues were monitoring an unrelated stellar explosion in M82 using the MERLIN network of radio telescopes in the UK. A bright spot of radio emission emerged over only a few days, quite rapidly in astronomical terms. Since then it has done very little except baffle astrophysicists.'

Read more...

Inflatable Tower Could Climb to the Edge of Space

A GIANT inflatable tower could carry people to the edge of space without the need for a rocket, and could be completed much sooner than a cable-based space elevator, its proponents claim.

Inflatable pneumatic modules already used in some spacecraft could be assembled into a 15-kilometre-high tower, say Brendan Quine, Raj Seth and George Zhu at York University in Toronto, Canada, writing in Acta Astronautica . If built from a suitable mountain top it could reach an altitude of around 20 kilometres, where it could be used for atmospheric research, tourism, telecoms or launching spacecraft.

Read more...

China's Fake Space Programme

The spacewalk that took place in a water tank

Hand of God: Scientists Reveal Amazing X-ray Image of a Supernova in Deep Space

The ghostly blue cloud seems to form an outstretched thumb and fingers grasping a burning lump of coal.
This astonishing image was taken by Nasa's Chandra X-ray observatory, which is orbiting 360 miles above the Earth's surface.

Read more...

Mystery Roar from Faraway Space Detected

Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected.

The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it.

Read more...

Magnetic Shield For Spacefarers

Future astronauts could benefit from a magnetic "umbrella" that deflects harmful space radiation around their crew capsule, scientists say.
The super-fast charged particles that stream away from the Sun pose a significant threat to any long-duration mission, such as to the Moon or Mars.
But the research team says a spaceship equipped with a magnetic field generator could protect its occupants.
Lab tests are reported in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.
The approach mimics the protective field that envelops the Earth, known as the magnetosphere.

Read more...

US House of Representatives Approves Nasa Buying Russian Spacecraft

Nasa's top achievement in Congress this year boils down to a single sentence - one line in a huge spending bill that would allow Nasa to circumvent an arms-control law and purchase Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft.
For Nasa administrator Michael Griffin, that might be enough to enable him to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and still get US astronauts to the international space station.
Yesterday, the House approved a $630bn measure to fund the government through next year that includes a sentence allowing Nasa to purchase Soyuz until July 2016.
For weeks, Griffin has told lawmakers that the Soyuz is the only reliable way to send American astronauts to the space station in the gap between the shuttle's retirement and the planned first mission of its replacement, now set for 2015. But he needed a waiver from the law banning high-tech purchases from Russia because of that country's sale of nuclear materials to Iran.

Read more...

When it suits them it's ok