
Copernical Team
NASA space copter ready for first Mars flight

40th anniversary of first space shuttle orbital mission a bittersweet occasion

Three-man crew docks at ISS after flight honouring Gagarin

Biden proposes 6.3% boost for NASA in budget proposal

Sperms in Space and the Lust for Power Grips Voyagers in Theaters April 9th

NASA's Mars Helicopter to make first flight attempt Sunday

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is two days away from making humanity's first attempt at powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. If all proceeds as planned, the 4-pound (1.8-kg) rotorcraft is expected to take off from Mars' Jezero Crater Sunday, April 11, at 12:30 p.m. local Mars solar time (10:54 p.m.
New research reveals secret to Jupiter's curious aurora activity

Auroral displays continue to intrigue scientists, whether the bright lights shine over Earth or over another planet. The lights hold clues to the makeup of a planet's magnetic field and how that field operates.
New research about Jupiter proves that point—and adds to the intrigue.
Peter Delamere, a professor of space physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, is among an international team of 13 researchers who have made a key discovery related to the aurora of our solar system's largest planet.
The team's work was published April 9, 2021, in the journal Science Advances. The research paper, titled "How Jupiter's unusual magnetospheric topology structures its aurora," was written by Binzheng Zhang of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong; Delamere is the primary co-author.
Research done with a newly developed global magnetohydrodynamic model of Jupiter's magnetosphere provides evidence in support of a previously controversial and criticized idea that Delamere and researcher Fran Bagenal of the University of Colorado at Boulder put forward in a 2010 paper—that Jupiter's polar cap is threaded in part with closed magnetic field lines rather than entirely with open magnetic field lines, as is the case with most other planets in our solar system.
Three-man crew docks at ISS after flight honouring Gagarin (Update)

A three-man crew blasted off to the International Space Station Friday in a capsule honouring the 60th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at the expected time of 0742 GMT, footage broadcast by NASA TV showed, with docking expected at 1107 GMT.
A NASA commentator citing Russian Mission Control reports confirmed that the Soyuz capsule had entered orbit, with all stages of the flight proceeding as expected.
"Hey, Expedition 64 –- set the dinner table... Can't wait to join you on @Space_Station in a few hours!" Vande Hei tweeted to the crew on board the ISS before blast-off.
The launch came just ahead of Monday's anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight on April 12, 1961.
American, Russians dock at International Space Station

Week in images: 05 - 09 April 2021

Week in images: 05 - 09 April 2021
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