Japan

Japanese spacecraft spots planet-spanning wave on Venus

22 January 2017 Stephen Clark

Images from Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft have revealed a gigantic wave in the atmosphere of Venus, and scientists say it may be the largest such feature in the solar system.

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.

Japan gives up on rescuing black hole observatory

2 May 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan’s space agency says it has ceased efforts to rescue a failed X-ray astronomy satellite after it spun out of control and broke apart in orbit, declaring the nearly $400 million mission lost two months after its launch.

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

30 March 2016 Stephen Clark

As Japanese ground controllers struggle to restore communications with a tumbling space telescope in orbit, the U.S. military’s space surveillance experts have eliminated one cause for the satellite’s troubles.

Japan’s newest space telescope goes silent

28 March 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan has lost contact with the newly-launched Hitomi space telescope, and ground observations indicate the satellite has shed debris and may be tumbling in orbit more than 350 miles above Earth.

Black hole observatory launched from Japan

17 February 2016 Stephen Clark

Japan launched a pioneering observatory with X-ray vision Wednesday to peer into the mysterious, light-starved neighbourhoods around black holes and study the genesis of galaxies and other cosmic mega-structures billions of light-years from Earth.

Japanese probe fires rockets to steer into orbit at Venus

7 December 2015 Stephen Clark

Five years after missing a shot to enter orbit at Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft completed a critical rocket burn early Monday in a bid to salvage the research mission and become the only space probe operating around Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.