Tag: space

Hidden for Centuries, “Lost” Portions of a Mysterious Ancient Star Map Have Been Revealed Using X-Rays

Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, have used X-ray beams to reveal once-hidden references to an ancient star map from a centuries-old document.

The ancient palimpsest—a portion of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus—has been revealed to contain fragmentary references to an ancient star catalog once used by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus. The ancient star maps in question were created by the astronomer as early as 150 B.C., copies of which were made several centuries later.

Now, the “lost” ancient writing has been made discernible as bright orange markings the X-rays have revealed, according to Minhal Gardezi, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was involved in the research.

A “Phaenomena” Emerges

The text revealed by SLAC researchers comprises portions of the poem “Phaenomena,” which dates to around 275 B.C. and is attributed to the Greek poet Aratus of Soli. The copies of the poem the SLAC team studied had likely been made sometime in the 6th century, at which time the unknown scribe also included sections comprising appendices relating to the positions of stars in various constellations, which were a perfect match for work known to have been undertaken by Hipparchus.

Originally transcribed on portions of animal hide, the remnants of the ancient poem were held within Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt’s Sinai desert for centuries. At some point between the 9th and 10th centuries, the original text on the palimpsest appears to have been erased and reused to record a series of monastic treatises, seemingly destroying the ancient scientific information the ancient record once contained.

SLAC’s particle accelerator has now revealed these “lost” portions of the ancient poem using powerful X-rays, making the invisible records from long ago visible again for the first time in centuries (images of which can be seen here).

In the past, very little from Hipparchus’s writings has been recovered, and most of our knowledge of the ancient Greek astronomer stems from secondhand sources. Based on such information, scholars are aware that he can be credited with the creation of one of the earliest star catalogs, as well as early mathematical innovations that include the invention of trigonometry.

The team’s discovery is important, since it offers a rare glimpse at such records from the ancient world, which were often recorded on perishable materials like papyrus, which seldom survive through the ages.

Going beyond even the surprise discovery of these ancient astronomical records, the SLAC team’s process reveals a promising new means by which researchers may be able to retrieve similar “lost” information from surviving ancient records, especially those kept on more rugged materials that were often reused throughout time.

The recent discovery represents a veritable cornucopia of ancient information related to a crucial period in the emergence of science close to two millennia ago. However, this is not the first indication that traces of earlier ancient writing had been present on the palimpsest. In the past, earlier use of advanced imaging techniques had already shown that some form of writing was discernible.

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NASA Aims To Build ‘Martian Outpost’ On Mars With Nuclear Propulsion

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced his agency’s commitment to developing a nuclear propulsion system for missions to Mars within the next three years.

“Before the end of @POTUS‘ term, @NASA will lay the foundation of a ’transcontinental railroad’ to Mars,” Isaacman wrote on X on Jan. 30. “By utilizing nuclear electric propulsion, our nation will have the tools necessary to establish a Martian outpost and maintain American superiority in deep space.”

The administrator shared a clip from a Jan. 30 appearance on Fox News in which he explained that while NASA continues its work to put boots back on the moon, it will also launch its first nuclear power and propulsion rocket by the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

“That’s going to essentially almost establish the transcontinental railroad to Mars,” he said. “It’s how you efficiently move lots of mass to Mars. So it’s not necessarily always the fastest way to get there, but it gives you the tools to build out potentially a Martian outpost, certainly to mine and refine propellant on Mars, which is what you’re going to need to bring your astronauts back home.”

He explained that America would have the capability to send astronauts to Mars, but the hard part was bringing them back. Nuclear power and propulsion solved that problem.

Meanwhile, Isaacman reaffirmed that the Artemis program would continue to push forward the goal of the president’s national space policy to not just land humans back on the moon, but to construct a lunar base in order to stay and fulfill its scientific, economic, and strategic potential.

That base, he said, will involve a nuclear power plant, as well as mining operations, and refining Helium 3, which is considered to be the best fuel for nuclear fusion reactors, and plan to do it before communist China’s plan to do so by 2030.

“The Chinese said they’re going to do it,” Isaacman said of a nuclear reactor on the moon, “We’re going to do it first.”

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Mitzpe Ramon to become Israel’s ‘Space City,’ creating new hub for civil space exploration

Israeli company Creation Space announced on Sunday plans to turn Mitzpe Ramon into Israel’s “Space City,” creating “the largest civil space ecosystem in Israel,” it said in a statement.

Space City aims to become Israel’s largest civilian space investigation and development campus, funded by government and private organizations, and partnered with Nvidia.

Led by Creation Space, it will include a technology campus, a control room for space missions, laboratories simulating the Mars environment, a startup accelerator program, and an academic campus dedicated to international research.

The project attracted NIS 100 million in investment from the Jewish National Fund-USA, the Mirage Foundation, CreationsVC, the Growth and Investment Authority at the Economy and Industry Ministry, as well as the Innovation Authority and the Israel Space Agency, both of which operate under the Innovation, Science, and Technology Ministry.

“The Space City will allow us to provide entrepreneurs with a full infrastructure, from acceleration programs to technological development laboratories, which significantly shortens the path from an idea to a proven commercial product,” said Dr. Roy Noar, CEO and co-founder of Creation Space.

“This is a model that attracts investors, establishes Israel as a key player in the global space economy, and is also capable of creating quality jobs in the Negev,” he added.

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The “Special Regions” on Mars Where It Is Totally Forbidden to Explore, for a Haunting Reason

Even as momentum builds toward sending humans to Mars in the next decade, several regions on the Red Planet remain off-limits to robotic exploration. The reason has nothing to do with distance or terrain. Instead, it reflects a long-standing international effort to prevent Earth microbes from contaminating potentially habitable zones.

Known as special regions, these areas could offer the best conditions for Mars life detection. No spacecraft, however, is currently authorized to explore them. The restriction stems from planetary protection guidelines that prioritize scientific integrity over operational ambition.

Recent data from NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater has intensified the conversation. In 2025, the rover identified organic molecules in rock formations linked to water-rich environments, prompting renewed scrutiny of current exploration limits.

The Legal and Scientific Shield Around Mars’s Special Regions

Special regions are Martian locations where environmental conditions may support microbial life. These include areas with intermittent warmth or subsurface water. The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) sets the criteria: any zone with temperatures above –28°C and water activity above 0.5 is flagged for protection.

The policy draws legal weight from Article IX of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which obligates nations to avoid biological contamination of other worlds. COSPAR’s planetary protection policy functions as the global implementation standard, informing mission protocols for agencies such as NASA, ESA, and CNSA.

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RETURN TO THE MOON: Artemis II Historic Crewed Lunar Mission Delayed 48 Hours Due to Extreme Cold, Set to Take Off on February 8

The return of US astronauts to the moon orbit is easily the most overlooked contemporary event.

Ever since 1972, no human being has been to the moon surface or its orbit. But now, the Donald J. Trump administration is gearing up for a historic return.

The Artemis II will take American astronauts back to the moon, and a first mission, to orbit our satellite, will take off in less than 10 days.

The mission was today bumped two days ahead because of the inclement weather in Florida.

NASA delayed a the fueling test (‘wet dress rehersal’) for the Artemis II moon rocket to Monday (February 2), and that pushed the historic launch back to no earlier than 11:20pm EST on February 8.

CBS News reported:

“The long-awaited Artemis II mission will use NASA’s huge Space Launch System rocket to boost three NASA astronauts and a Canadian crewmate on a trip around the moon and back, the first such flight since the final Apollo mission 54 years ago. The upcoming mission will set the stage for another crew to attempt a landing near the moon’s south pole in 2028.

The Artemis II launch had been targeted for next Friday, assuming a leak-free fueling test Saturday. But with the test delay, and the time needed for NASA to analyze the results, the agency opted to give up launch opportunities on Feb. 6 and 7. If the rocket is not off the ground by Feb. 11, the flight will slip to early March.”

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How the Pentagon Is Quietly Turning Laser Communications Into the Backbone of Future Space Warfare

Military communications have long depended on radio waves bouncing invisibly across land, sea, air, and space. However, as satellites multiply in orbit and the electromagnetic spectrum grows increasingly contested, the limits of traditional radio-frequency links are becoming harder to ignore.

Now, a new empirical study suggests that a less visible—and far more powerful—alternative is edging closer to practical, operational use: laser-based communications that can adapt on the fly to harsh and unpredictable conditions.

In a paper published in Optical Engineering, researchers from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) describe the development and testing of a new optical receiver designed to support the SDA’s latest laser communication standard.

The research focuses on how to reliably receive laser signals that fluctuate wildly in strength as satellites race overhead—but its implications extend well beyond the lab.

At stake is whether the U.S. military can build a resilient, high-speed space communications backbone capable of supporting future defense operations.

The study focuses on the Space Development Agency’s Optical Communication Terminal standard, a set of specifications intended to ensure that laser communication systems built by different vendors can communicate with one another.

Interoperability is central to SDA’s “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture” (PWSA), a satellite architecture composed of hundreds of relatively small spacecraft operating together in low Earth orbit.

Laser links promise far higher data rates than radio systems and are inherently harder to jam or intercept. However, they also introduce new technical hurdles, especially when signals must pass through Earth’s turbulent atmosphere.

“The Space Development Agency (SDA) has developed an Optical Communication Terminal standard to ensure system interoperability among a number of industry partners by defining critical technical specifications ranging from initial pointing, acquisition, and tracking to data modulation formats and error-correction protocols,” researchers explain.

That standard, now in its fourth major revision, adds support for what are known as burst-mode waveforms—signals that trade continuous transmission for short, intense pulses.

The appeal of burst mode lies in flexibility. When a satellite passes over a ground station, the strength of its laser signal can vary by roughly 20 decibels from start to finish due to changing distance, pointing geometry, and atmospheric distortion.

Rather than designing a system for worst-case conditions and accepting inefficiency the rest of the time, burst-mode signaling allows operators to dynamically sacrifice data rate in exchange for greater signal margin. To put it simply, the link can slow down when conditions are bad, rather than dropping out entirely.

To test how well this concept works in practice, researchers built and characterized a prototype ground receiver optimized for the SDA standard’s new burst-mode formats.

Unlike more complex coherent optical systems, the receiver relies on a large-area avalanche photodiode (APD) that can collect distorted light without the need for adaptive optics. That choice reflects a broader design philosophy: favoring robustness and simplicity over maximum theoretical performance.

“Burst-mode waveforms offer extended receiver power efficiency at the expense of data rate for longer range applications or size, weight, and power constrained terminals,” researchers explain.

For a mobile ground station, a ship at sea, or even an aircraft receiving data from space, maintaining a reliable link can matter more than pushing the highest possible throughput at every moment.

The experiments described in the paper show that the prototype receiver performs close to theoretical expectations across a wide range of operating conditions, particularly once front-end signal conditioning is applied.

While researchers stop short of claiming a fully fielded system, they describe it as an initial demonstration of an SDA-compliant burst-mode optical receiver—an important milestone for a standard intended to underpin real-world deployments.

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CONFIRMED: NASA’s Crew-11 To Make Early Return to Earth After ‘Serious Medical Condition’ With Astronaut 

Medical emergency in space.

Once again, an emergency in space makes the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) change its plans in an urgent fashion, after two astronauts were left stranded in orbit by a faulty Boeing Starliner craft.

This time, a ‘serious medical condition’ with a crew member aboard the International Space Station will make NASA bring the astronaut and the three crewmates back to Earth months earlier than planned.

This is the first emergency of its kind in the ISS’ 25-year history.

Reuters reported:

“NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters on Thursday in a short-notice press conference in Washington that he and medical officials made the decision to return the astronaut, whom he did not identify, because ‘the capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station’.”

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A Mysterious “Medical Concern” in Space Caused NASA to Cancel a Spacewalk—Here’s Everything We Know

A concerning development began unfolding in orbit on Wednesday, as NASA officials revealed a health incident that led to the postponement of a planned spacewalk aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

“NASA is postponing the Thursday, Jan. 8, spacewalk,” read a portion of a statement that appeared on the official ISS blog on January 7, adding that NASA officials were “monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex.”

The unnerving news from NASA arrived in the middle of a week already filled with unrest related to a tragic incident in Minneapolis, which involved the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an agent with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

In NASA’s initial update, few details were provided about the nature of the “medical concern” that led to the postponement of the spacewalk, citing privacy issues that the agency said made it inappropriate “for NASA to share more details about the crew member” at that time.

“The situation is stable,” the statement from NASA Communications added, noting that “NASA will share additional details, including a new date for the upcoming spacewalk, later.”

Expedition 74 Sees an Interruption

The developments aboard the ISS arrived as NASA’s Expedition 74 crew had been completing final preparation for what would have been its first spacewalk of 2026.

According to initial plans, astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman were scheduled to conduct a six-and-a-half-hour excursion that would begin a series of power system upgrades, including installing hardware and routing cables for future roll-out solar arrays.

In addition to plans related to the spacewalk, the ISS crew has been involved in research this week that includes physics and microbiology experiments, with additional research involving Earth observation, studies on cryogenic fluid storage, ultraviolet microbial disinfection, and AI-assisted transcription of crew activity logs.

Amid the Expedition 74 team’s work, international crew members were also providing support for their operations, according to an update issued at the ISS blog earlier on the same day that the medical situation was later revealed. At that time, NASA officials said support teams had continued to undertake overnight imaging of Earth and maintenance of station systems, operations which were expected to continue during Thursday’s planned spacewalk.

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BACK TO THE MOON: NASA’s Artemis II Set To Send Astronauts Into Lunar Orbit as Soon as February

During the second year of Donald J. Trump’s second term, the US is going to make the moon great again.

This elusive goal, that no nation has attained since way back in 1972, is the number one priority of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), pushing the Mars mission further down the line.

The Artemis’ mission is to return American astronauts to the moon and establish a permanent lunar base — and it is finally about to launch its first crewed flight.

CNN reported:

“The landmark mission, dubbed Artemis II, is on track to lift off as soon as February. The highly anticipated endeavor will mark the first time astronauts have ventured beyond the bounds of near-Earth orbit since the final Apollo mission in 1972.

Artemis II will send a group of four astronauts — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — on a trip around the moon.”

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Trump signs order to put Americans on the moon by 2028. But is it feasible?

President Trump issued an executive order on Thursday urging NASA to put Americans on the moon by 2028, signing it the same day NASA’s new Senate-confirmed administrator Jared Isaacman took office. 

The order, titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” emphasizes the role of the upcoming Artemis missions for Americans to journey to the moon and Mars.

NASA has targeted April 2026 for the launch of Artemis II. It would take the American astronauts in orbit around the moon — the furthest mission into deep space in human history. 

Artemis III would put people on the surface of the moon for the first time in the 21st century. NASA’s website has listed a mid-2027 launch date. 

But former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the Senate Commerce Committee in a September hearing he doesn’t think the U.S. will be able to land astronauts on the moon by that date, nor by China’s stated goal of landing astronauts on the moon by 2030. 

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