Lifeboat Foundation

All good things must come to an end, and Juno— NASA’s $1-billion mission to study Jupiter like never before — is no exception. The probe launched from Earth in August 2011, reached Jupiter in July 2016, and is scheduled to make its last two of 14 high-speed flybys around the gas giant in May and July.

But that doesn’t mean Juno is finished beaming back astounding new photos of Jupiter. At least not yet but it will soon.

Berlin 26th April 2018 – The first full scale model of the European Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft (MALE RPAS) was unveiled today during a ceremony held at the 2018 ILA Berlin Air Show, which opened its gates at Schönefeld airport.

The reveal ceremony, led by Dirk Hoke, Airbus Defence and Space Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Eric Trappier, Dassault Aviation Chairman and CEO and Lucio Valerio Cioffi, Leonardo’s Aircraft Division Managing Director, confirms the commitment of the four European States and Industrial partners to jointly develop a sovereign solution for European Defence and Security.

The unveiling of the full scale model and the reaffirmed commitment comes after a nearly two-year definition study launched in September 2016 by the four participating nations Germany, France, Italy and Spain and follows the Declaration of Intent to work together on a European MALE unmanned aerial system signed by the countries in May 2015.

Continue reading “Airbus, Dassault Aviation and Leonardo reaffirm their total commitment in the first fully European MALE programme” »

As i said the other day on here. No money for science. Plenty of money for war war war. And, the knucklehead public is out zonked out to whatever mindless BS they screwing off with this minute.

In a move that shocked lunar scientists, NASA has cancelled the only robotic vehicle under development to explore the surface of the Moon, despite President Donald Trump’s vow to return people there.

Scientists working on the Resource Prospector (RP) mission, a robotic rover that had been in development for about a decade to explore a polar region of the Moon, expressed astonishment at the decision.

Continue reading “Scientists shocked as NASA cuts only moon rover” »

Final preparations being carried out in the week before the VLT UT1 First Light. Following successful optical alignment tests, the 8.2-m primary mirror was removed from the first Unit Telescope (UT1). This image shows preparations to move it into the Mirror Maintenance Building (MMB) to be coated with a thin, highly reflective aluminium layer. The cell with the 8.2-m mirror has been detached from the lower part of the telescope tube. (Photo obtained on May 17, 1998).

Nashville, Tenn. (WKRN) — If you saw the moon Saturday night, you know how bright it was!

Technically, it will be a full moon Sunday at 7:58 p.m. There is something else that is special about Sunday’s night sky.

There is a “conjunction” of the moon with Jupiter Sunday and Monday evenings just after sunset in the southeastern sky. Sunset is at 7:32 p.m.

Continue reading “Full moon tonight & conjunction with Jupiter” »

BERLIN (AP) — The European Space Agency has released the first image taken by its Trace Gas Orbiter showing the ice-covered edge of a vast Martian crater.

Scientists combined three pictures of the Korolev Crater taken from an altitude of 400 kilometers (249 miles) on April 15.

Lead researcher Nicolas Thomas said Thursday the colors in the resulting image were also adjusted to best resemble those visible to the human eye.

Continue reading “European Space Agency releases 1st image from Mars orbiter” »

Want to see 1.7 billion stars in stunning detail? This 3D color map of our universe is the best ever. (via Seeker Universe)

Four lasers beam out from one of the Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), guiding your eyes to the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds beneath them.

The Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) shines four 22-watt laser beams into the sky to create artificial guide stars by making sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere glow so that they look just like real stars. The artificial stars allow the adaptive optics systems to compensate for the blurring caused by the Earth’s atmosphere and so that the telescope can create sharp images.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared footage from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta satellite, which passed by Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2016. The archived footage shows spectacular sights from space, and some of the most majestic aspects of our solar system.