Collaborate Disseminate
“These gravity images are revolutionizing our ability to study the least understood continent on Earth—Antarctica.” Continue reading Data From a Dead Satellite Reveals Lost Continents Under Antarctica
We love seeing hardware and software from bygone eras getting a new lease on life through modern hacks, as longtime readers can surely attest to. Why leave this stuff to rot in a closet somewhere when it can be pushed into service today? Granted it might not always be the most efficient way to accomplish a task in the 21st century, but at least you’ll net some precious Internet Points for originality.
As a perfect example, take a look at this project which lets you read Slack messages through a Super Nintendo game. If your first thought was that such …read more
Whilst modern technology relies heavily on satellites, it’s easy to forget they’re there; after all, it’s hard to comprehend mostly-invisible lumps of high-density tech whizzing around above you at ludicrous speeds. Of course, it’s not hard to comprehend if you’ve built a real-time satellite tracker which displays exactly what’s in orbit above your head at any given time. [Paul Klinger]’s creation shows the position of satellites passing through a cylinder of 200 km radius above the tracker.
Each layer of LEDs represents a specific band of altitude, whilst the colour of the LEDs and text on the screen represent the …read more
Continue reading Real Time Satellite Tracker Shows You What’s Going Over Your Head
The city of Chengdu could be illuminated by a fake moon as early as 2020. Continue reading A Chinese City Wants to Replace Streetlights With an Artificial Moon
The satellite laser communication revolution is just around the corner, but it has one especially obstinate foe—overcast weather. Continue reading Scientists Want to Punch Holes in Clouds With Ultra-Hot Lasers from Space
Ham radio operators bouncing signals off the moon have become old hat. But a ham radio transmitter on the Chinese Longjiang-2 satellite is orbiting the moon and has sent back pictures of the Earth and the dark side of the moon. The transceiver’s main purpose is to allow hams to downlink telemetry and relay messages via lunar orbit.
While the photo was received by the Dwingeloo radio telescope, reports are that other hams also picked up the signal. The entire affair has drawn in hams around the world. Some of the communications use a modulation scheme devised by [Joe Taylor, …read more
Continue reading Hams see Dark Side Of The Moon Without Pink Floyd
What stops criminals from jamming a channel by sending spoofed signals to its satellite in space, acting like they are from the TV station and therefore hijack or jam the channel?
How can the satellite make sure the rec… Continue reading How do TV satellites authenticate the receiving signal to make sure its from the TV station that its claiming to be and is not spoofing?
French Defense Minister Florence Parly took a page out of Little Red Riding Hood when she recently called out a Russian satellite for having “big ears”. While she stopped short of giving any concrete details, it was a rare and not terribly veiled accusation that Russia is using their Luch-Olymp spacecraft to perform orbital espionage.
At a speech in Toulouse, Parly was quoted as saying: “It got close. A bit too close. So close that one really could believe that it was trying to capture our communications.” and “this little Stars Wars didn’t happen a long time ago in a …read more
Continue reading France Questions Russian Satellite with “Big Ears”
Russia and China have been ramping up their military presence in space in order to keep up with American capabilities. Continue reading ‘Very Abnormal’ Russian Satellite Escalates Fears of Orbital Arms Race
This past weekend, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe took off for a journey to study our local star. While its mission is well covered by science literate media sources, the equally interesting behind-the-scenes information is a little harder to come by. For that, we have Science News who gave us a look at some of the work that went into testing the probe.
NASA has built and tested space probes before, but none of them were destined to get as close to the sun as Parker will, creating new challenges for testing the probe. The lead engineer for the heat shield, …read more
Continue reading Before Sending A Probe To The Sun, Make Sure It Can Take The Heat