Year: 2025

A distant globular cluster

10:03 am

A distant globular cluster
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a research project to study globular clusters in galaxies other than the Milky Way.

The data for this image comes from an observing programme comparing old globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies — the LMC [Large Magellanic Cloud], the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy — to the globular clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy contains over 150 of these old, spherical collections of tightly-bound stars, which have been studied in depth — especially with Hubble Space Telescope images like this one, which show them in previously-unattainable detail. Being very stable and long-lived, they act as galactic time capsules, preserving stars from the earliest stages of a galaxy’s formation.

Astronomers once thought that the stars in a globular cluster all formed together at about the same time, but study of the old globular clusters in our galaxy has uncovered multiple populations of stars with different ages. In order to use globular clusters as historical markers, we must understand how they form and where these stars of varying ages come from. This observing programme examined old globular clusters like NGC 1786 [pictured] in these external galaxies to see if they, too, contain multiple populations of stars. This research can tell us more not only about how the LMC was originally formed, but the Milky Way Galaxy, too.

This cluster, discovered in 1835 by John Herschel, is about 160,000 light years away.

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Third Indian state announces a space policy to encourage private enterprise

9:37 am

India map

A third state in India, Andhra Pradesh, has now released its own space policy, designed to create what it calls “manufacturing clusters”, centered around India’s main spaceport at Sriharikota.

The A.P. Space Policy (4.0) 2025-30 is valid for five years from the date of issue (July 13, 2025), or till a new policy is announced. A technical committee will be constituted under the Commissioner of Industries to vet and process applications for land allotment in the Space Cities proposed to be developed along the Hyderabad-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor in Sri Sathya Sai district and in Tirupati (Routhasuramala).

The government will form an SPV, ‘AP Space City Corporation’, which will drive all initiatives related to the development of the above Space Cities, and serve as the central agency to coordinate infrastructure development, raise start-up funds, attract investments, facilitate industry partnerships, build partnerships to attract global demand, and liaise with all GoI [Government of India] entities for tapping the domestic demand.

The previous two state space policies in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, announced in April, had similar goals aimed at promoting the establishment of private aerospace companies within their regions.

Whether Andhra Pradesh’s policy will work carries uncertainties. Its advantage is that it is linked to India’s primary spaceport. Its disadvantage lies in the complex bureaucracy the state is creating in conjunction with these “Space Cities.” Such bureaucracies are rarely helpful for new businesses.

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LIGO detects gravitational waves of largest black hole merger yet

9:22 am

The LIGO gravitational wave detector, spread across several continents, successfully detected the largest black hole merger yet on November 23, 2023.

The two black holes that merged were approximately 100 and 140 times the mass of the Sun. In addition to their high masses they are also rapidly spinning, making this a uniquely challenging signal to interpret and suggesting the possibility of a complex formation history. “This is the most massive black hole binary we’ve observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation,” says Professor Mark Hannam, from Cardiff University and a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. “Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models. One possibility is that the two black holes in this binary formed through earlier mergers of smaller black holes.”

To date, approximately 300 black-hole mergers have been observed through gravitational waves, including candidates identified in the ongoing O4 run. Until now the most massive confirmed black-hole binary was the source of GW190521, with a much smaller total mass of “only” 140 times that of the sun.

As noted by the press release as well as this news article, present theories of stellar evolution say that these black holes could not have come from single stars, which are predicted to never be this massive. It is posited that each black hole might have formed from earlier mergers, but there is also a lot of uncertainty in the data. To quote the release again: “Extracting accurate information from the signal required the use of theoretical models that account for the complex dynamics of highly spinning black holes.”

That this detection was almost two years ago and only announced now makes me wonder if the timing of the announcement has more to do with lobbying and less to do with science. Trump’s proposed budget eliminates the U.S. funding portion for this project, and it is standard operating procedure for such projects to suddenly announce big discoveries timed to correspond to when Congress is considering the budget.

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Suborbital test launch from Oman’s Duqm spaceport scrubbed

9:09 am

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport
The Middle East, showing the location of
Oman’s proposed spaceport at Duqm.

A suborbital test launch from Oman’s Duqm spaceport was scrubbed yesterday due to” a technical issue” with the rocket.

DUQM: Etlaq Spaceport’s highly anticipated experimental rocket launch mission “Duqm-2” was aborted due to a technical issue on Sunday, July 13, 2025. Consequently, the launch has been postponed until “a replacement solution is developed,” it stated.

This was the second attempt launch scrubbed at Duqm, officially labeled the Etlaq Spaceport. The first, an attempt by a Middle East startup to do a vertical take-off and landing of a prototype small rocket, was scrubbed in April due to weather and technical issues. No new launch date has been scheduled.

The spaceport had announced in April a schedule of five launches before the end of the year. Two have now been scrubbed. All appear to have major financing from the Oman government. I suspect all have been pushed too hard and too fast by the government for PR reasons, which explains the two scrubs and the lack of a new launch schedule.

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Dragon capsule undocks from ISS carrying four Axiom’s passengers

8:47 am

After spending 18 days in space, 14 on ISS, the Dragon capsule early this morning undocked from ISS with a splashdown scheduled for early tomorrow.

The mission was financed by the space station company Axiom, and was commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, now employed by Axiom as a professional astronaut. The three paying passengers were all government astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary.

The capsule, dubbed Grace, is the newest addition to SpaceX’s fleet of five manned reusable capsules, flying on its first mission.

Splashdown is scheduled for the wee hours of July 15th tomorrow off the coast of California. The live stream can be found here.

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SpaceX launches geosynchronous satellite for unnamed customer

11:42 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched a geosynchronous satellite for unnamed customer, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings completed their fourteenth and eighteenth flights respectively. No information about the satellite was released, including ending the live stream right after the first stage landed while providing no information about the satellite’s orbit after stage separation.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

86 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 86 to 63.

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Judge narrows SpaceX lawsuit against California Coastal Commission

9:16 am

Though U.S. district judge Stanley Blumenfeld ruled in May that SpaceX’s lawsuit against California Coastal Commission for targeting the company because the commissioners did not like Elon Musk’s political views can proceed, in early July he also narrowed the lawsuit significantly.

Blumenfeld granted a motion to dismiss violations of the First Amendment and due process against the commission and individual members based on lack of standing, sovereign immunity and failure to state a claim, but allowed allegations of “biased attempts to regulate SpaceX’s activity” and unlawfully demanding a CDP to proceed.

“In sum, SpaceX has plausibly alleged a ripe, nonspeculative case or controversy over whether it must obtain a CDP to continue its Falcon 9 launches,” Blumenfeld said in his order. “The credible threat that defendants will bring an enforcement action and subject SpaceX to daily fines for not having a CDP — which defendants pointedly do not disavow — is sufficient to establish an actual injury under Article III [of the U.S. Constitution].”

It appears the judge acted to protect the commissioners themselves from direct liability, using the made-up concept from the 20th century that government employees are somehow wholly immune from any responsibility for their actions.

Nonetheless, SpaceX has a great case, and is very likely to win in court, a victory that could very well cause the coastal commission and the state of California serious monetary pain.

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First suborbital launch of Taiwan rocket startup fails

9:06 am

The first suborbital launch of the Taiwan rocket startup Tispace failed today shortly after lift-off from a new commercial spaceport on the northern island of Hokkaido in Japan.

The rocket took off from Hokkaido Space Port at 11:40 a.m. local time, but it was soon seen drifting, with smoke escaping. Footage of the launch was shown by NHK News on its website.

Nobody was reported injured in the incident, and the rocket was not carrying any payload. The first launch of a foreign-made rocket from Hokkaido served to test its engine’s capabilities, the report said.

The rocket startup was formed in 2016 and originally wanted to launch from Taiwan. After legal issues blocked that launch site it then attempted to arrange a launch from Australia. It appears similar red tape issues forced it to switch to Japan.

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July 11, 2025 Quick space links

7:54 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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Weird drainages on Mars

11:58 am

Weird drainages on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on Februay 11, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The camera team posted it yesterday as their own cool image, labeling it “A Fissure and Channel near Pavonis Mons”. From the caption:

A linear trough strikes northeast, then abruptly ends (or changes into a narrow ridge). Where the trough ends, a sinuous channel has an east-southeast strike, trending at almost a right angle to the trough. What happened to form these features?

We can speculate that first there was a southwest-to-northeast trending fracture or fault, perhaps associated with a volcanic vent. Groundwater (or some other runny fluid) coursed through the fault until overflowing and forming the sinuous channel. Continued movement through the fault carved a trough up to the overflow point.

The arrows indicate the downhill grades. Though this caption mentions groundwater, it is far more likely that the “runny fluid” was lava, as shown by the overview map below.
» Read more

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