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The Milky Way is being "pushed" through space by a cosmic dead zone that lurks half a billion light years from Earth, researchers claim. Located on the far side of the constellation of Lacerta, the Lizard, the vast patch of nothingness appears to have a striking dearth of galaxies compared to the rest of its cosmic neighbourhood.
The paucity of stars, planets and other matter in the region may explain as much as half of the force that propels our home galaxy through the heavens at a speed of two million kilometres per hour. Israel Space Week Takes Off With Focus on Future Mars Mission --> Read the full article here
Israel Space Week kicked off Sunday, with dozens of activities across the country centering on this year's theme of Mars. Space Week's activities include simulated missions to the Red Planet, exhibits on developments in the field of space exploration, observations, workshops for building model spaceships, planetarium viewings, astronaut encounters and more.
In the main complex of the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, guests can attempt a series of challenging space missions that demonstrate what life would be like on Mars and the challenges future colonizers of the planet will face. Activities include fixing a space rover that is about to be sent to Mars, farming fruits and vegetables on the planet and a zero gravity simulation. The museum is also hosting an exhibit on Israeli developments in the field of space exploration. SpaceX Delays First Flight From NASA Shuttle Launch Pad --> Read the full article here
SpaceX on Sunday bumped this week's planned launch of an EchoStar communications satellite until after a mid-February cargo run to the International Space Station for NASA, saying it needs more time to get its new launch pad ready. SpaceX, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, is leasing the historic Launch Complex 39A from NASA to fly its Falcon 9 and planned Falcon Heavy rockets. The pad was last used by NASA's space shuttles in 2011 and previously by the Apollo program moon rockets.
Pad 39A is located at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, just north of what had been SpaceX's primary launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Cape Canaveral pad was heavily damaged on Sept 1 when a Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames during a routine preflight test. After the accident the company decided to focus on getting 39A ready before it began rebuilding the damaged pad. It had hoped to launch the EchoStar 23 satellite last year, but delayed the flight to late January and then early February. Seeking Alpha Centauri Planets, Researchers Welcome Multiple Efforts --> Read the full article here
It's always an exciting time to be involved in space exploration, and 2017 has already proved to be no exception. At Project Blue, we're on a mission to find and photograph an Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri - and as you probably saw in the news recently, we're not the only ones with that ambitious goal. Breakthrough Initiative, a private organization aimed at looking for other life, announced it also wants to search for planets in Earth's neighboring star system, and that group will tap the best telescopic technology in Chile in hopes of doing so.
You might wonder how this affects plans at Project Blue, or why Breakthrough Starshot is using infrared instead of visible-light imaging. The answer is that we have so much to learn about the Alpha Centauri system, which is Earth's closest neighbor in space, and different imaging techniques can reveal different things. Cosmic Neutrino Detector Reveals Clues About Ghostly Particle Masses --> Read the full article here
Buried under the Antarctic ice, the IceCube experiment was designed primarily to capture particles called neutrinos that are produced by powerful cosmic events, but it is also helping scientists learn about the fundamental nature of these ghostly particles. At a meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) in Washington, D.C., this week, scientists with the IceCube collaboration presented new results that contribute to an ongoing mystery about the nature of neutrinos. These particles pour down on Earth from the sun, but they mostly pass unimpeded, like ghosts, through regular matter.
The new results support evidence of a strange symmetry in measurements of one neutrino mass. In particle physics, symmetries often indicate underlying physics that scientists haven't yet unearthed. Prepping for Re-Launch: SpaceX Test-Fires Used Falcon 9 Rocket --> Read the full article here
SpaceX is gearing up for its first-ever launch of a used rocket. Last week, SpaceX test-fired the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the CRS-8 International Space Station resupply mission last April, company representatives said Tuesday (Jan. 31). The same rocket stage is scheduled to loft the SES 10 communications satellite sometime next month, though no firm launch date has been announced.
"Prepping to fly again - recovered CRS-8 first stage completed a static fire test at our McGregor, TX rocket development facility last week," SpaceX posted Tuesday on Twitter, along with a photo of the test. Good Vibrations! NASA Launch Simulation Tests Megarocket Experience --> Read the full article here
Launch conditions are never easy so engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have already begun simulations of the first crewed launch of the Orion spacecraft on the agency's new megarocket, the Space Launch System (SLS).
Inside a JSC lab this month, NASA's human factor engineers combined the many aspects of an Orion-SLS launch for the first time. During the tests, subjects wore modified versions of the advanced crew escape suits future Orion astronauts will wear, and sat in the latest seat design for the spacecraft in order to experience what a launch might be like. Space Farming: Satellite's Greenhouses to Simulate Moon, Mars Gravity --> Read the full article here
A satellite that's scheduled to launch later this year will conduct plant-growth experiments in both lunar and Martian gravity, as a way to help prepare for future human settlement of these worlds. The Eu:CROPIS spacecraft will rotate around its own axis in low-Earth orbit, at an altitude of over 370 miles (600 kilometers). The satellite will initially produce the gravitational force of the moon on its inside for six months, and will then replicate Martian gravity for another six months.
During this time, tomato seeds will germinate and grow into small space tomatoes; 16 onboard cameras will document the plants' progress. In addition, microorganisms that are contained in a trickle filter will use synthetic urine to produce fertilizer for the tomatoes. And Euglena microbes will produce oxygen for the system and supply it with protection against excess ammonia, Eu:CROPIS team members said. NASA Creates Origami Space Radiator --> Read the full article here
Origami, the art of paper folding, has been associated with Japanese and Chinese culture for centuries. But now a technologist at NASA is adding a futuristic twist to origami by using it as a basis for a smart space radiator. All the electronic gadgets we create on Earth have a temperature range within which they can operate. The same is true of devices, for example satellites, that we launch into Earth's orbit and beyond. However, the temperature range and fluctuations they need to deal with are much greater.
So Vivek Dwivedi, a technologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has been working on a way to help protect satellites in particular from massive fluctuations in temperature. What he's ended up with is a shape-shifting radiator coated in vanadium oxide. Watch the Newest Music Video From Space --> Read the full article here
The first time music came down from space was more than 50 years ago, and the recording artists were Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, the crew of Gemini 6. Schirra and Stafford were orbiting Earth during Christmas season, flying tandem with Jim Lovell and Frank Borman aboard Gemini 7. As Gemini 6 was peeling off to come home, Schirra announced that he had spotted a UFO flying in a low orbit near the North Pole. Before NASA or the Strategic Air Command could sound the alert, a tinny rendition of Jingle Bells - performed on a smuggled harmonica and a small set of bells - filled the headsets in Mission Control. The little performance lives on in an audio NASA later released.
Now French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, musician Pierre-Alexandre Busson - who performs under the name Yuskek - and director Jerome de Gerlache have added to the oeuvre, with the release of the music video of Yuskek's new song "Live Alone." The song is solid enough, but the video gives it additional dimension, cutting back and forth between Yuskek in the studio and Pesquet in the ISS as they both go about their work, which at times looks strikingly similar.
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The surface facility for the IceCube experiment, which is located under nearly 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of ice in Antarctica.
Image of a January 2017 static-fire test of the first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that already has one spaceflight under its belt. The booster launched SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station in April 2016.
In a first, several components of the Orion spacecraft project were combined for a vibrations test.
The Eu:CROPIS satellite developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which is scheduled to launch later this year, will rotate around its own axis to simulate the lunar and Martian gravity needed for two greenhouses located inside.
Cosmic tomatoes will grow in two greenhouses inside the German Aerospace Center’s Eu:CROPIS satellite.
The origami radiator can be folded and unfolded as required to either collect to shed heat and help keep temperature fluctuations to a minimum.
In a new deep-space photo from ESO, two starry nebulas, a cat's paw reaches out to high-five a glowing, red lobster.
Afterword
Not much to say this week - just remember to post any questions, comments, or critique below. FTH out. 
