Astrophysics

Engineers examine unexpected readings from JWST shake test

20 December 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA says engineers are diagnosing the source of “anomalous readings” during a recent vibration test of the sensitive optics and sensors at the heart of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Japan’s Hitomi observatory made cosmic discovery before failing

12 July 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s doomed Hitomi observatory peeled back a veil on the inner workings of the Perseus cluster of galaxies before the satellite spun out of control earlier this year, revealing in unprecedented detail how gas heated to millions of degrees behaves around an unseen supermassive black hole, scientists said.

LISA Pathfinder success bolsters plan for gravitational wave observatory

9 June 2016 Stephen Clark

Europe’s LISA Pathfinder mission — a fundamental physics lab launched last year to a point a million miles from Earth — has demonstrated the mind-boggling technology required for a future space-based observatory to listen for faint, low-frequency vibrations emitted by invisible objects in the most distant pockets of the universe, scientists said this week.

Engineers examine unexpected readings from JWST shake test

Japan’s Hitomi observatory made cosmic discovery before failing

LISA Pathfinder success bolsters plan for gravitational wave observatory

Japan gives up on rescuing black hole observatory

U.S. military rules out collision as cause of Hitomi satellite’s woes

Japan’s newest space telescope goes silent

NASA’s next flagship space telescope to get formal start

NASA picks candidates for new space telescope