For the second time in its mission so far, the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through the tail of a comet. Predicted in advance by astronomers at University College London, UK, the spacecraft collected a wealth of science data that now awaits full analysis.

Image: The beauty of the Sun seen from space

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 21, 2022
After a few sols of challenges that prevented us from getting close-up MAHLI imaging of this dark outcrop in front of us, today we were finally able to plan the contact science that we were hoping for. Yesterday there was a small rock under the right rear rover wheel, so we had to kick that rock to the curb to get into a stable position for using the rover arm. This morning's downlink data

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 24, 2021
A SpaceX Dragon capsule that had transported supplies and experiments to the International Space Station splashed down along the coast of Florida on Monday afternoon. The capsule's four main parachutes were deployed shortly after 4 p.m. EST, and splashdown was confirmed two minutes later, the company said. The freighter delivered some 4,900 pounds of science experiments and stati

London, UK (SPX) Jan 21, 2022
OneWeb, the low Earth orbit satellite communications company, and Hughes Network Systems LLC has announced a strategic six-year Distribution Partner agreement to provide low Earth orbit (LEO) connectivity services across India. The arrangement between OneWeb and Hughes Communications India Private Ltd. (HCIPL), a joint venture between Hughes and Bharti Airtel Limited, follows the Memorandum of U

Washington (AFP) Jan 24, 2022
The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its cosmic parking spot a million miles away, bringing it a step closer to its mission to unravel the mysteries of the Universe, NASA said Monday. At around 2:00 pm Eastern Time (1900 GMT), the observatory fired its thrusters for five minutes to reach the so-called second Lagrange point, or L2, where it will have access to nearly half the sky at

Baltimore MD (SPX) Jan 25, 2022
At 2 pm EST Monday, Webb fired its onboard thrusters for nearly five minutes (297 seconds) to complete the final postlaunch course correction to Webb's trajectory. This mid-course correction burn inserted Webb toward its final orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, nearly 1 million miles away from the Earth. The final mid-course burn added only about 3.6 miles per hour (1

Medford MA (SPX) Jan 21, 2022
Asteroids fly through our solar system all the time, but it's rare for us to take notice of them. But that's changed this week, as an asteroid passes within 1,231,184 miles of Earth on January 18. The asteroid, dubbed 7482 (1994 PC1), was first seen in 1994 and is about two-thirds of a mile wide. One likely reason Americans are paying more attention is because many millions have watched th

by Iona Brockie | Sampling Engineer - NASA/JPL
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 25, 2022 Have you ever wondered how a coring bit grabs and holds onto a rock core? As we drill, the bit teeth cut a 27mm diameter circle in the rock and leave the 13mm diameter center intact. As we dig deeper, that cylinder of rock is fed into the sample tube that was loaded inside the bit. When the drill reaches its target depth, typically 66mm, the core is fully in

Beijing (XNA) Jan 21, 2022
Chinese scientists published the country's lunar rover travelogue of its first two years of service that depicted the unique and untrodden moonscape on the moon's far side, revealing its notable differences with the near side with in situ evidence. The study published on Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal, Science Robotics, described cloddy soil, gel-like rocks, and fresh small craters