The brainchild of aerospace engineer, RMIT alumnus and senior research associate Dr James Waldie, the SkinSuit has been worn by an astronaut inside the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time. Denmark’s first astronaut, Andreas Mogensen, spent 10 days in the ISS last month and pulled on the SkinSuit to test its effectiveness in the weightless conditions. Inspired by the striking bodysuit worn by Cathy Freeman at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Waldie and his collaborators have spent more ...

For the first time ever, molecular oxygen has been found on a comet. Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, currently being orbited by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, is the subject of a study published in Nature. According to ESA researchers, the oxygen present in the comet's surrounding gasses has likely been there since the formation of the comet. "It is the most surprising discovery we have made so far, because oxygen was not among the molecules expected in a cometary coma," the Un...

Astronomers announced that they have spotted a large, rocky object disintegrating in its death spiral around a distant white dwarf star. The discovery also confirms a long-standing theory behind the source of white dwarf “pollution” by metals. “This is something no human has seen before,” said lead author Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “We’re watching a solar system get destroyed.” The evidence for this unique system came from NASA’s Kepler K2 miss...

Imagine looking into space using this super-giant telescope. With a gigantic 39-meter aperture, the Giant Magellan Telescope is a super-giant earth-based telescope that promises to revolutionize our view and understanding of the universe. It will be constructed at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile and is expected to take 10 years to build. The GMT has a unique design that offers several advantages. It is a segmented mirror telescope that will use seven of the world's largest mirrors...