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update 12-04-2026
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Apr 30, 2026
China was rejected from the International Space Station in 2011 when the US Congress passed a law banning NASA from any cooperation with China‘s space program. Most nations would have accepted that and moved on. China did something completely different. They decided to build their own space station from scratch, alone, without any international help, and they finished it in just 2 years. The result is Tiangong, the Heavenly Palace, a 3-module space station orbiting 400 kilometers above Earth that is packed with technology so advanced it makes the ISS look like it belongs in a museum. From the world‘s first space microwave to smart circadian lighting, resistance band uniforms, and a robotic telescope 300 times wider than Hubble, what China quietly built up there is one of the most remarkable engineering achievements in human history.
The Shenzhou XXIII crew has entered the Tiangong space station and met with the outgoing Shenzhou XXI astronauts.
The new arrivals — mission commander and spaceflight engineer Colonel Zhu Yangzhu, spacecraft pilot Colonel Zhang Zhiyuan, and science payload specialist Lai Ka-ying — were launched by a Long March 2F carrier rocket at 11:08 pm Sunday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.
After flying about three and a half hours, their spaceship docked with the front port on the Tianhe core module, the central piece of the Chinese space station, at 2:45 am Monday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.
(May 24, 2026)
Drei Raumfahrer sind in Richtung der chinesischen Raumstation „Tiangong“ gestartet. Das Raumschiff „Shenzhou-23“ mit den drei Astronauten an Bord hob vom Weltraumbahnhof Jiuquan im chinesischen Teil der Wüste Gobi ab. Ins All befördert wurde die Kapsel von der Trägerrakete „Langer Marsch 2-F“.
Im Rahmen der Mission soll erstmals ein chinesischer Raumfahrer ein ganzes Jahr lang auf der Raumstation bleiben – ihre dreiköpfige Besatzung wird üblicherweise alle sechs Monate ausgetauscht. Dies wird von Peking als wesentlicher Schritt in den chinesischen Bestrebungen betrachtet, bis zum Jahr 2030 Menschen zum Mond zu schicken.
(May 29, 2024)
“Molybdenum is used to detect some diseases. Every week, hospitals and nuclear medicine diagnostic centers across the country need radiopharmaceuticals based on the use of technetium-m99, and more than one million patients benefit from technetium-m99 every year,” Ali Bahrami Samani, the project manager of the Molybdenum macro plan said.
(…)
“Furthermore, the hot cell facilities during the implementation of the molybdenum production plan using the method of neutron activation of molybdenum oxide were not suitable under the foreign sanctions for the rapid implementation of the industrial stage under special conditions. Also, given the restrictions imposed by the nuclear deal known as the JCPOA (Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action), it was decided that molybdenum production plan to be carried out in several stages,” the manager of the project further explained.
(December 18, 2024)
The U.S. government has worked for several years to help establish a domestically produced supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99)to stabilize access to this critical radio-isotope used for more than 75% of medical nuclear imaging exams. The U.S. currently relies on 100% of its Mo-99 supplies from foreign reactors overseas, making the country‘s medical imaging supply chain vulnerable. This was the case in October and early November, when one of the key aging European reactors was taken off line for emergency repairs.
(…)
Historically, Mo-99 has been sourced from a handful of older research reactors outside the U.S., much of which came from the Chalk River reactor in Canada. But that 60-year-old reactor closed in 2018, and the reliance on reactors outside the states, including one Russian reactor for some medical isotopes, has left the U.S. vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.
“The world depends on six reactors, many of which are decades old,” Cutler explained. “These facilities coordinate their operations to minimize disruptions, but when maintenance issues arise, shortages can quickly follow.”
According to authorities, the woman, who was on her phone at the time, was startled when she suddenly noticed the robot behind her near the Lok Yeung Fa Yuen residential complex in Patane last Thursday.
Video circulating online shows the woman angrily confronting the robot before two officers arrive. One officer is seen placing a hand on the robot’s shoulder as they escort it away.
Teile eines Meteoriten haben laut Polizei Schäden an Häusern in Rheinland-Pfalz angerichtet. Schadensmeldungen gebe es unter anderem aus dem Hunsrück, der Eifel und aus Koblenz. Auch in anderen Bundesländern war der Himmelskörper zu sehen.
Fireball streaks across skies of several European cities
The northern lights are caused by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the sun that interacts with Earth’s magnetic field. As charged particles strike Earth’s magnetic field, they accelerate down its magnetic field lines at the north and south poles, exciting particles in the atmosphere to create ovals of green and red.
(archive entries)
(February 2, 2026)
NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) began its two-year primary science mission on Feb. 1 to explore and map the boundaries of our heliosphere — the protective bubble created by the solar wind that encapsulates our solar system.
The mission, which launched on Sept. 24, 2025, relies on 10 scientific instruments to chart a comprehensive picture of what’s roiling in space, from high-energy particles originating at the Sun, to magnetic fields in interplanetary space, to dust left from exploded stars in interstellar space.
(February 3, 2026)
A NASA probe has started its mission to map the heliosphere, which is a huge protective bubble around the solar system that was created by the sun, the space agency announced on Monday.
The space agency‘s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, is expected to continue its mission for two years, using scientific instruments to chart the boundaries of the heliosphere and what‘s going on inside of it.
The probe is focusing on high-energy particles bursting from the surface of the sun, the magnetic fields that form in the spaces between planets, and the dust left behind by collapsed stars farther out in the galaxy.
(July 19, 2024)
The current solar cycle, named Cycle 25 because it is the 25th since 1755 when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began, started in 2019.
It is not expected to end for another six years but the first signs that the next solar cycle is beginning have been spotted by researchers from the University of Birmingham and presented at the Royal Astronomical Society‘s National Astronomy Meeting in Hull.
(February 12, 2026)
Scientists call the current cycle Solar Cycle 25, the 25th numbered cycle since recordkeeping began in the 1700s. Even though it may feel like the northern lights have been more common in recent years, Solar Cycle 25 ranks among the lowest of the past 126 years.
(…)
Earth’s magnetic field has been slowly weakening for more than a century, which means our natural shield isn’t quite as strong as it used to be. That doesn’t create solar storms, but it can change how much of that energy actually makes it through when a strong one hits.
(December 2009)
Abstract. The heliosphere is the space within which the solar wind dominates and the solar interplanetary magnetic field prevails. Its boundary is determined by the balance between stellar and solar winds. Owing to the present reduction in the solar wind pressure, one would expect that the stellar wind would push the heliosphere inward leading to its shrinkage. In this paper we calculate the extent of the heliosphere at different solar wind status. Backward estimation of the extent of the heliosphere since 1890 is done. It is found that the heliosphere oscillated between 75 and 125 AU between 1890 – 2010. Most important is the forecast of the shrinkage and oscillations of the heliosphere and their implications on the earth. The shrinkage of the heliosphere would allow more invasions of cosmic rays to the earth and planets, increased cloud cover and a cooler Earth.
(…)
1.4 Prediction of the State of solar Activity During The Next Few Decades
Weak solar cycles occur at the bottom of Wolf-Gleissberg cycles. They tend to occur in series of 3-4 cycles. A single weak cycle also occurs in between the two maximums of Wolf-Gleissberg cycle. Since the last weak solar cycles occurred around 1900 while the previous ones occurred around 1800 then the newly started cycle 24 should be a weak solar cycle. However, owing to the 200-years de Verie cycle of the sun, it is more likely that the status of the coming solar activity would be something like those weak cycles around 1800 as shown in Fig 1. Svalgaard (2005) also predicted that cycle 24 would be the lowest so far in the past 100 years with the maximum sunspot number around 75.
(October 1, 2010)
For starters, it‘s been assumed that the heliosphere‘s expansion and contraction follows the sun‘s roughly 11-year activity cycle, during which the flow rate of charged particles, or solar wind, fluctuates.
But when scientists compared IBEX maps of the heliosphere taken just six months apart, the researchers found that it had shrunk to a much greater extent than expected.
(October 18, 2008)
The scientists hope the IBEX mission will allow them to gain a better understanding of what happens at this boundary and help them predict what protection it will offer in the future.
Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.
Measurements made by the Ulysses deep space probe, which was launched in 1990 to orbit the sun, have shown that the pressure created inside the heliosphere by the solar wind has been decreasing.
Sep 3, 2008
The ESA/NASA Ulysses mission has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the Sun and our local interstellar neighbourhood. Ulysses was designed to last for five years but the mission was extended four times, allowing Ulysses to pass over the Sun‘s poles for a second and third time, and spending more than 18 years in space.
Aug 31, 2017
This visualization tracks the trajectory of the Voyager 1 spacecraft through the solar system. Launched on September 5, 1977, it was one of two spacecraft sent to visit the giant planets of the outer solar system. Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn before being directed out of the solar system.
To fit the 40 year history of the mission into a short visualization, the pacing of time accelerates through most of the movie, starting at about 5 days per second at the beginning and speeding up to about 11 months per second after the planet flybys are past.
The termination shock and heliopause are the ‚boundaries‘ created when the plasma between the stars interacts with the plasma flowing outward from the Sun.
(March 9, 2022)
This complex environment surrounds the planets and ultimately has a crucial effect on the formation, evolution, and destiny of planetary systems. For one thing, our heliosphere acts as a giant shield, protecting the planets from galactic cosmic radiation. Earth is additionally shielded by its own magnetic field, the magnetosphere, which protects us not only from solar and cosmic particle radiation but also from erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind. Planets without a shielding magnetic field, such as Mars and Venus, are exposed to such processes and have evolved differently.
NASA‘s studies of the heliosphere include research into: how the solar wind behaves near Earth; what causes and sustains magnetic and electric fields around other planets; how does the heliosphere interact with the interstellar medium; what do the boundaries of the heliosphere look like; what is the origin and evolution of the solar wind and the interstellar cosmic rays; and what contributes to the habitability of exoplanets.
(June 1981)
This paper describes in detail how we are led to the first approximation expression for the solar wind-magnetosphere energy coupling function ɛ, which correlates well with the total energy consumption rate U T of the magnetosphere. It is shown that ɛ is the primary factor which controls the time development of magnetospheric substorms and storms. The finding of this particular expression ɛ indicates how the solar wind couples its energy to the magnetosphere; the solar wind and the magnetosphere constitute a dynamo. In fact, the power P generated by the dynamo can be identified as ɛ by using a dimensional analysis. Furthermore, the finding of ɛ indicates that the magnetosphere is closer to a directly driven system than to an unloading system which stores the generated energy before converting it to substorm and storm energies.
(January 13, 2026)
Coining the term “near-Earth astrophysics,” Fasel has devoted much of his career to investigating solar-terrestrial interactions between the Sun and Earth, using the aurora borealis to obtain clues regarding the coupling mechanisms between the solar wind and the Earth’s terrestrial magnetic field.
“Stars have winds,” says Fasel. “And this includes our Sun. While solar wind is a relatively continuous stream of particles that interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, the Sun can also produce powerful solar storms. These storms expel billions of charged particles [plasma] coupled to magnetic fields, called coronal mass ejections, which bang up into the Earth’s magnetic field.”
The Earth’s magnetic field lines, Fasel explains, “act like wires” on which these particles travel down into the Earth’s upper atmosphere, specifically the ionosphere. The aurora is an end result of this interaction, where high-energy electrons collide with oxygen to produce green light, while those of lower energy produce a raspberry-red color.
(May 20, 2020)
Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength on a global average. A large region of reduced magnetic intensity has developed between Africa and South America and is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.
(May 22, 2020)
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the magnetic field has lost around 9 percent of its strength over the preceding two centuries. One section of the magnetic field has been found to have weakened considerably since 1970.
This patch, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, sits between Africa and South America. Over the last 50 years, it has grown and moved farther west at a rate of roughly 12 miles per year. However, in the last five years, part of the anomaly appears to have split off into a cell which the ESA calls a „second center of minimum intensity“ located southwest of Africa.
(29.3.2018)
The strength of Earth’s main magnetic field is currently about 29.5 microteslas, down 5 microteslas, or 14 percent from its strength three centuries ago.
We know this. There is no question of this.
(August 2008)
Correlations between geomagnetic-field and climate parameters have been suggested repeatedly, but possible links are controversially discussed. Here we test if weak (Earth-strength) magnetic fields can affect climatically relevant properties of seawater. We found the solubility of air in seawater to be by 15% lower under reduced magneticfield (20 mT) compared to normal field conditions (50 mT). The magnetic-field effect on CO2 solubility is twice as large, from which we surmise that geomagnetic field variations modulate the carbon exchange between atmosphere and ocean. A 1% reduction in magnetic dipole moment may release up to ten times more CO2 from the surface ocean than is emitted by subaerial volcanism.