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SETI Works Best When Telescopes Double-Check Each Other
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has evolved considerably in the past sixty years since the first experiment was conducted. This was Project Ozma, which was conducted in 1960 by Dr. Frank Drake and his colleagues using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia. While the experiment did not reveal any…
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Beyond UFOs: The future of Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena
I got involved with SETI early in my career. I was a junior at UC Santa Cruz and saw an advertisement for the first-ever astrobiology conference, which was an emerging field at the time. On a whim, I decided to cut school and attend. It was there I met other SETI researchers, and I’ve collaborated…
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James Webb Space Telescope reveals distances of nearly 200 deep-space galaxies
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers determine the distance to nearly 200 galaxies and galaxy clusters formed in the universe’s early days. One of the first publicly released images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb), released on July 11, 2022, captured at least 7,000 galaxies in a sparkling deep field…
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The Sky This Week from November 3 to 10: See Jupiter at its best
This stunning Hubble portrait of Jupiter was taken when the planet was near opposition in 2019. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) Friday, November 3Jupiter reaches opposition at 1 A.M. this morning, putting its best and brightest face forward for observing. Rising roughly as the…
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The Magellanic Clouds must be renamed, astronomers say
In September, astronomer Mia de los Reyes published an op-ed in the journal APS Physics, representing a coalition of astronomers calling for the renaming of two iconic, deeply studied and shining irregular galaxies near the Milky Way. One of these star-studded realms is named the Large Magellanic Cloud and the other, for reasons you’d probably…
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Space Domain Awareness project utilises radio astronomy technology and techniques to support defence goals
Background Researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR-Curtin) translated radio astronomy capability to design and develop a flexible, deployable and covert sensor system with the potential to operate as an inexpensive, highly configurable and covert passive radar. Space-based systems play a vital role in Defence operations — from providing valuable information, to…
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SpaceRake wins $1.8 million in SDA funding for optical communications terminals
SAN FRANCISCO – The Space Development Agency awarded SpaceRake, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup, $1.8 million to develop miniature laser communications terminals. It was the first government contract for SpaceRake, a firm founded in 2021 by Kerri Cahoy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Space Telecommunications, Astronomy and Radiation Laboratory director with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering,…
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Swinburne and W. M. Keck Observatory form historic scientific partnership to unlock new era of space discovery
Swinburne University of Technology has become the first organisation outside the United States to join the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaiʻi as a scientific partner. The new scientific partnership doubles the number of observing nights for Swinburne researchers and will provide Swinburne with a vote in setting science and technology priorities for the Observatory.…
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SwRI’s Dr. Alan Stern conducts space research aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity – Research & Development World
November 2, 2023 — Dr. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist and associate vice president of Southwest Research Institute’s Space Sector, today flew aboard the Virgin Galactic commercial spaceship Unity on a suborbital space mission. During the roughly 60-minute mission, first mated to its carrier aircraft VMS Eve, and then horizontally launched into space, Stern tested equipment and…
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Milton Public Library’s ‘Night Sky Program’ illuminates minds with Vermont Astronomical Society
Vermont Astronomical Society president Jack St. Louis (right) and committee chair Jim Bosek (left) presented at the Milton Public Library’s “Night Sky Program.” Photographed by Shannon Gunderson Beneath the ink-black canvas of a Milton night, the Milton Public Library became a portal to the cosmos as the Vermont Astronomical Society illuminated the mysteries of the…