September 1, 2025

Maine’s Space Industry, Facing Pushback on Land, Looks to the Sea (Source: Press Herald)
The Maine Space Corporation, which recently filed for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, was created in 2022 by the Maine Legislature with the aim of positioning the state as “a national and international destination and authority in launching small launch vehicles and small satellites into polar orbit.” But MSC is taking lessons from the struggles of the commercial space industry in Maine and, for now, is working toward the launch of small rockets from platforms far out to sea, hoping to avoid some of the pushback faced by commercial space companies whose operations have been rejected by communities worried about the impact on fishing and the environment.

The Maine Space Corporation, said Shehata, is in talks with The Spaceport Company, a Virginia-based startup that focuses on mobile floating spaceports, about acquiring access to its launch platform. The company recorded the first rocket launch from U.S. waters in 2023 in the Gulf of Mexico. (8/31)

Turning Martian Soil Into Metal: Scientists Test New Extraction Process (Source: Phys.org)
Construction demands materials, and we can't ship it all from Earth: it cost $243 million just to send NASA's one ton Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet. Unless we're building a settlement for ants, we'll need much, much more stuff. So how do we get it there? As it turns out, Mars has all the ingredients needed to make native metals. This includes iron-rich oxides in regolith and carbon from its thin atmosphere, which act as a reducing agent.

Researchers are working to test this process with regolith simulant—an artificial recreation of the stuff found on Mars. The simulant is placed inside a chamber at Mars surface pressure and heated at increasing temperatures. The experiments showed pure iron metal formation around 1,000°C, with liquid iron-silicon alloys produced around 1400°C. (8/26)

NASA Scientists Map Plant Productivity with Data from Ocean Satellite (Source: NASA)
NASA launched PACE in February 2024 to assess oceanic and atmospheric health. Since then, Earth scientists are encouraging researchers to use the satellite’s instruments for data gathered over land. Compared to MODIS, OCI captures a much broader range of the light that reflects from plants and collects more data overall. The new monitoring tools rely on data from OCI, providing a clearer picture of productivity year-round. (8/29)

Astronomers Find Signs of a New World Called "Planet Y" Hiding in Our Own Solar System (Source: Earth.com)
This potential world would be smaller than Earth but larger than Mercury, orbiting 100 to 200 times farther from the Sun than Earth does. Its gravity seems to nudge nearby objects about 15 degrees out of the solar system’s flat plane, like ripples disturbing a lake’s surface.

“Our signal is modest, but credible,” Siraj said, estimating just a two to four percent chance of being a fluke. Early evidence for Planet Nine carried similar odds, though the signatures differ. Planet Nine would tug objects toward it, while this “Planet Y” appears to tilt orbits out of alignment. In theory, both worlds could exist at once. (8/25)

Cataclysmic Crash with Neighboring Planet May be the Reason There's Life on Earth (Source: Live Science)
Early Earth was a barren wasteland incapable of supporting life until a big protoplanet crash carried in the necessary ingredients, a new study suggests. That collision of the proto-Earth and a Mars-size body — nicknamed Theia — has been theorized for decades, especially in discussions of how our moon may have formed from the resulting pieces of the crash. Now, in a new study, scientists say Theia also brought some of life's key ingredients to our world, more than 4 billion years ago. (8/29)

Satellite Companies Like SpaceX Are Ignoring Astronomers’ Calls to Save the Night Sky (Source: Gizmodo)
There are more than 12,000 active satellites circling Earth at the moment, a growing figure that has nearly doubled in less than three years. This recent boom in the satellite industry has been a major headache for astronomers, with bright satellites appearing as streaks in telescope images of the universe and tarnishing views of the night skies.

A new paper reveals that satellite constellations are brighter than the recommended limits set forth by astronomers, with only one company adhering to the guidelines. The paper, appearing in the preprint server arXiv, compares the observed brightness magnitudes of satellite constellations in Earth orbit with brightness limits established by the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky (CPS).

Nearly all the satellites were found to exceed the limit of +7 brightness magnitude, thereby interfering with observations of the cosmos. The brightest satellites belonged to Texas startup AST SpaceMobile, with its BlueWalker constellation exceeding a brightness magnitude of +2. (8/28)

This Weirdly Brilliant Telescope Design Might Finally Uncover Earth’s Twin (Source: SciTech Daily)
Finding Earth-like planets is nearly impossible because stars drown them out in brightness. Conventional telescope designs fall short, but a proposed rectangular infrared telescope could solve this. It might reveal dozens of promising worlds within 30 light-years, paving the way to spotting signs of life.

we propose a more feasible alternative. We show that it is possible to find nearby, Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars with a telescope that is about the same size as JWST, operating at roughly the same infrared (10 micron) wavelength as JWST, with a mirror that is a one by 20 meter rectangle instead of a circle 6.5 meters in diameter. With a mirror of this shape and size, we can separate a star from an exoplanet in the direction that the telescope mirror is 20 meters long. (9/1)

NASA Is Taking Suggestions For Raising Swift’s Orbit (Source: Hackaday)
Launched in 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory – formerly the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer – has been dutifully studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) during its two-year mission, before moving on to a more general space observation role during its ongoing mission. Unfortunately, the observatory is in LEO, at an altitude of around 370 km. The natural orbital decay combined with increased solar activity now threatens to end Swift’s mission, unless NASA can find someone who can boost its orbit.

Using Swift as a testbed for commercial orbit-boosting technologies, NASA is working with a number of companies to investigate options. One of these is the SSPICY demonstration of in-orbit inspection technology by Starfish Space that’s part of an existing Phase III program. Although currently no option has been selected and Swift is still at risk of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere within the near future, there seems to be at least a glimmer of hope that this process can be reverted. (8/31)

The Math Says Life Shouldn’t Exist: New Study Challenges Origins Theories (Source: SciTech Daily)
The research highlights the immense challenge of generating structured biological information under realistic prebiotic conditions, underscoring how unlikely it would have been for the first living cell to appear naturally. Think of it like trying to write an article about the origins of life for a well-renowned science website by randomly throwing letters at a page. The chances of success become astronomically small as the required complexity increases.

By applying information theory and algorithmic complexity, Endres analyzed what it would take for the earliest living cell, known as a protocell, to self-assemble from simple chemical components. This mathematical perspective demonstrates how improbable such a process would be if left to chance under natural conditions. The findings indicate that chance alone, combined with natural chemical reactions, may not sufficiently account for the origin of life within the limited timeframe of early Earth. (8/31)

Plan to Consolidate FAA Workforce Riles Workforce (Source: Government Executive)
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy informed employees on Tuesday that Federal Aviation Administration headquarters staff, who are currently spread out among six locations in the Washington, D.C., area, will be relocated to the department’s building in the southeast part of the city. Union officials, however, are concerned about the plan’s reasonableness and said that it’s raising red flags for the agency’s workforce.

“I'm not sure what continued collaboration looks like because I haven't seen any collaboration yet,” he said. Due to the lack of communication, the union has filed complaints with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

“We have a contract, and when the agency changes working conditions they're supposed to inform us, and then we're supposed to be able to ask questions, get some answers and then bargain on things that might have adverse impact to employees,” Ronneberg said. “None of that has happened.” (8/27)

Kuiper to Enter Vietnam with $570M Investment (Source: Light Reading)
The plan was reportedly revealed in a statement issued by Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) this week, following a meeting in Hanoi between MST Deputy Minister Pham Duc Long and Gonzalo de Dios, Amazon's head of global licensing at Project Kuiper. According to the MST, the US tech giant has pledged to invest $570 million in Vietnam by 2030. Through local partnerships, Amazon plans to build approximately six ground stations and a terminal production facility in the northern province of Bac Ninh. (8/29)

SpaceX Offers Rare Peek Inside a Starlink Satellite Factory, Tips 'Mini Lasers' (Source: PC Mag)
SpaceX has offered a rare look at its Starlink factory in Redmond, Washington, which can pump out 70 satellites per week. The company posted a video about the Redmond facility on Tuesday in the run-up to SpaceX’s tenth flight test for its Starship vehicle, which was rescheduled due to weather. "All of those Starlink satellites came from here, right in Redmond," Akash Badshah, SpaceX senior director for satellite engineering, says in the clip. Click here. (8/26) https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-offers-rare-peek-inside-a-starlink-satellite-factory-tips-mini-lasers

NASA's 3D-Printable Metal Hopes to Make Air Travel Cheaper and Faster for Everyone (Source: Earth.com)
NASA’s new alloy, GRX-810, is built to handle punishing temperatures and heavy loads without falling apart. It can be 3D printed into complex shapes, which means engineers can make lighter parts that still keep their strength. Most 3D printed engine parts failed because affordable metals could not take sustained heat near 2,000 F. GRX-810 changes that by combining a nickel, cobalt, and chromium base with tiny ceramic particles that stabilize the metal at high temperature. (8/26)

Scientists are Using Exoplanets to Map Out 'Polka Dots' on Stars (Source: Space.com)
NASA scientists have devised a new way to use planets that cross, or "transit," the face of their parent stars to investigate stellar "spottiness." The new technique, called the "StarryStarryProcess," could also be used to discover more about the atmospheres of planets. (8/27)

Exoplanets Engulfed in Steam are Taking Center Stage in the Search for Life in Our Galaxy (Source: Space.com)
Scientists have developed a better model to understand "steam worlds," which are planets smaller than Neptune and larger than Earth that are too hot to have liquid water at their surface and thus have atmospheres filled with water vapor. Though steam worlds are unlikely to harbor life, modeling them more precisely could help scientists better comprehend ocean planets better, which in turn would aid in directing our search for life beyond the solar system. (8/26)

Spherical RoboBall Could Tackle Moon’s Toughest Terrain (Source: New Atlas)
We're used to rovers exploring the Moon or Mars to have legs and wheels for moving around, but a team at Texas A&M wants to go more geometrical with a new mobile robot shaped like a ball for literally rolling about rough terrain. The RoboBall project began at NASA in 2003 and was revived by the Texas A&M Robotics and Automation Design Lab (RAD Lab). (9/1)

Space-Time, the Interwoven Fabric of Space and Time (Source: EarthSky)
Few ideas in modern science have reshaped our understanding of reality more profoundly than space-time: the interwoven fabric of space and time at the heart of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Space-time is frequently described as the fabric of reality. In some accounts, this fabric is referred to as a fixed, four-dimensional block universe, a complete map of all events, past, present and future.

In others, it’s a dynamic field that bends and curves in response to gravity. But what does it really mean to say that space-time exists? What kind of thing is it? Is space-time structure, substance or metaphor? Click here. (8/31)

Inside the Decision to Eliminate the UK Space Agency (Source: Space.com)
The UK Space Agency (UKSA), formed in 2010 with the goal of propelling the country's space and satellite sector into the new space age, will be absorbed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) by April.

The UK government announced the decision Aug. 20, saying the move would "cut duplication and ensure decisions are made with clear ministerial oversight." UKSA will effectively become a department within DSIT, which had been providing all of the agency's funding since 2023. The merger has been widely seen as part of the Labour government's initiative to cut government expenditure and civil service costs by 15% by the end of the decade. Click here. (9/1)