Tag: space

Object found in the Milky Way ‘unlike anything astronomers have seen’

by Maddison Connaughton Agence France-Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australian researchers have discovered a strange spinning object in the Milky Way they say is unlike anything astronomers have ever seen. The object, first spotted by a university student working on his undergraduate thesis, releases a huge burst of radio energy three times every hour. The pulse comes “every 18.18 minutes, like clockwork,” said astrophysicist Natasha Hurley-Walker, who led the investigation after the student’s discovery, using […]

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Webb telescope reaches final destination, a million miles from Earth

by Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its cosmic parking spot a million miles away, bringing it a step closer to its mission to unravel the mysteries of the Universe, NASA said Monday. At around 2:00 pm Eastern Time (1900 GMT), the observatory fired its thrusters for five minutes to reach the so-called second Lagrange point, or L2, where it will have access to nearly half […]

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Russia’s only female cosmonaut to travel to space in September

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) – Russia’s sole active female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, is due to travel to the International Space Station in September on a Soyuz rocket, the national space agency said Thursday. Kikina, a 37-year-old engineer, will be only the fifth professional woman cosmonaut from Russia or the Soviet Union to fly to space. Last year, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said “our beauty” Kikina would fly aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as part of a […]

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Japan space tourist eyes Mariana Trench trip after ISS

  by Tomohiro OSAKI TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday his trip into space had given him a new appreciation for Earth, and he now hopes to plunge into the ocean’s forbidding Mariana Trench. Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano spent 12 days on the International Space Station last month, where they documented life in space for one million YouTube subscribers. Speaking Friday for the first time since his return to […]

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Webb telescope fully deploys sunshield in mission milestone

by Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its tennis-court sized sunshield Tuesday, a critical milestone for the success of its mission to study every phase of cosmic history, NASA said. “All five layers of the sunshield are fully tensioned,” said an announcer at the observatory’s control center in Baltimore, where team members cheered, a live feed showed. The 70-foot (21 meter) long, kite-shaped apparatus acts like a […]

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James Webb telescope sets off on million-mile voyage

by Pierre CELERIER The world’s most powerful space telescope on Saturday blasted off into orbit, headed to an outpost 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) from Earth, after several delays caused by technical hitches. The James Webb Space Telescope, some three decades and billions of dollars in the making, left Earth enclosed in its Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana. “What an amazing day. It’s truly Christmas,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of […]

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Japanese space tourists return to Earth after 12 days on ISS

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — A Japanese billionaire was to return to Earth Monday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station, where he made videos about performing mundane tasks in space including brushing teeth and going to the bathroom. Online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano, who will be shepherded home by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, are set to parachute onto Kazakhstan’s steppe at 0313 GMT Monday. Their journey marked Russia’s […]

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Russia’s cosmos town, an isolated relic of Soviet glory

by Nikolay KORZHOV Agence France-Presse BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) – Malik Mutaliyev walks by an abandoned amusement park in wintry Baikonur, a secretive town in Kazakhstan’s inhospitable steppe that appeared alongside the eponymous Baikonur Cosmodrome where the Soviet Union’s space programme rose to glory. “Our town has lived through a lot: Perestroika, the fall of the Soviet Union, electricity shortages. We’ve been through it all,” says the 67-year-old former chief architect of Baikonur. The settlement located […]

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Japanese billionaire arrives at ISS

by Anastasia CLARK BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) — A Japanese billionaire arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday, marking Russia’s return to space tourism after a decade-long pause that saw the rise of competition from the United States. Online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier on Wednesday. They docked with the Poisk module of the Russian segment of the ISS at 1340 GMT, […]

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Russian rocket blasts off carrying Japanese billionaire to the ISS

by Anastasia CLARK Agence France-Presse BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) – A Russian rocket lifted off on Wednesday carrying a Japanese billionaire to the International Space Station, marking the country’s return to space tourism after a decade-long pause that saw the rise of competition from privately held US companies. Online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and his production assistant Yozo Hirano blasted off from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0738 GMT, an AFP correspondent at the […]

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Japanese tycoon ‘excited’ ahead of trip to ISS

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) – Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Tuesday he was feeling “excited” ahead of his mission to the International Space Station, which marks Russia’s return to space tourism. Maezawa, a space enthusiast who made his wealth in online fashion, and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, will spend 12 days on the ISS. Their Soyuz rocket operated by Russia’s Roscosmos space agency will blast off from the Moscow-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. “I […]

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NASA announces 10 latest astronaut trainees

HOUSTON, United States (AFP) — NASA announced Monday its 10 latest trainee astronauts, who include a firefighter turned Harvard professor, a former member of the national cycle team, and a pilot who led the first-ever all-woman F-22 formation in combat. The 2021 class was whittled down from a field of more than 12,000 applicants and will now report for duty in January at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where they will undergo two years […]

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