23 Apr, 2024
2 mins read

GOES-17 satellite detects lightning strikes in the midwestern United States

It has been two months since the GOES-17 satellite was launched on March 01, 2018. The satellite is presently under its six months checkout period. On May 9, it sent the ‘first-light’ image captured by its Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). According to the official statement, GLM mounted on GOES-17 satellite monitored lightning strikes and its […]

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NOAA’s latest weather satellite is suffering from a cooling problem

On Wednesday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an official statement regarding the GOES-17 weather satellite that was launched two months ago. In the statement, the agency stated about a cooling problem that could endanger the capability of the satellite in the orbit. GOES-17, a new generation of a weather satellite, was […]

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Experiment on the ISS: CAL will cool down the temperature of atoms to absolute zero in fraction of seconds

The Antares rocket and Cygnus supply ship by Orbital ATK were recently launched to the International Space Station after almost a day’s delay. Cygnus carried a number of apparatus of which, one of the most exciting pieces of the instrument is called Cold Atom Laboratory or CAL. This ice chest-sized apparatus would allow scientists to […]

3 mins read

NASA is planning to launch a rover & a helicopter on the Mars in 2020

On May 5, NASA launched its InSight lander which is estimated to land on the Martian surface later this year. The space agency has launched a number of rovers, orbiters, and landers to the red planet with Curiosity being the latest in operation. But, according to the reports that surfaced recently, NASA is ready to […]

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NASA’s GRACE-FO twin satellites will soon register gravitational pull, flow of water and predict floods & earthquakes

SpaceX will soon launch the NASA GRACE-FO satellite along with Iridium NEXT satellite from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Tuesday at 12:47 p.m. PDT or 19:47 UTC. GRACE stands for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and it is a pair of two satellites that will work in tandem. The twin satellite mission […]

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A newly-discovered supermassive black hole found that shines brighter than an entire galaxy

Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) have come across the fastest-growing black hole in the known universe. The supermassive black hole is located around 12 billion light-years from the Earth making it one of the black holes that formed right after the Big Bang. The supermassive black hole is estimated to be the size […]

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TESS satellites sends a stunning test image of more than 200,000 stars

NASA’s new exoplanet-hunting mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) that was launched on April 18 aboard SpaceX Falcon rocket has spent just a few days in the space and yet, it managed to send a stunning test image consisting of more than 200,000 stars in a single frame. The image released by NASA shows […]

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An asteroid just made a close approach towards the Earth; Is it possible to avoid an asteroid collision?

There are billions of asteroids in our solar system. NASA tracks those objects which are a potential threat to the Earth and are classified as Near Earth Objects (NEO). Just recently, an asteroid (named 2010 WC9) with a diameter of 60 to 130 meters zoomed past the Earth at a staggering velocity of 12.8 kilometers […]

2 mins read

Queqiao relay communication satellite will enable communication between Chang’e 4 and Earth

Back in 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the near side of the moon. While moon has been the only celestial object where any astronaut has visited, its far side i.e. the side while remains dark forever has been a mystery. Moon is tidally locked with the Earth which means, it […]