Copernical Team
Keeping track of spacecraft as Earth’s water alters its spin
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- Mass is constantly being redistributed around our planet, as Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and other bodies of water on and under the surface melt, shift and stir.
- This mass redistribution alters Earth’s centre of gravity, which in turn speeds up and slows down the planet's spin – and so the length of the day – as well as changing the orientation of its 'spin axis'.
- These changes to Earth’s spin and orientation occur over relatively short timescales of days and weeks, and threaten communication between ground stations and missions in orbit and across the Solar System.
- ESA is working
Where did Mars’ water go?
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Where did Mars’ water go? How ESA helps South Africa share water fairly
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Clustered at the edge of the Crocodile River in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, stand thousands of farms and small holdings growing fresh fruit and sugar cane. Water to irrigate the crops is taken from the river, but this slows its flow rate and leaves less for those downstream.
Mars water loss shaped by seasons and storms
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Mars has lost most of its once plentiful water, with small amounts remaining in the planet’s atmosphere. ESA’s Mars Express now reveals more about where this water has gone, showing that its escape to space is accelerated by dust storms and the planet’s proximity to the Sun, and suggesting that some water may have retreated underground.
Mars findings cataloged in Navajo language
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Native people have had ties to land in North America since time immemorial, and now that connection is expanding to the cosmos.
The Perseverance rover has been on Mars for a month, collecting data and making discoveries with each passing day.
A number of the findings, through a collaboration with NASA, have been catalogued in Diné Bizaad, the Navajo language.
The Perseverance team started with a list of 50 words and will expand the list as needed. According to a tweet from the rover itself, some terms have already been used, such as tsé łichíí (red rock), yéigo (diligence) and séítah (amongst the sand).
Before landing in the Jezero Crater on Máaz, Navajo for Mars, the Perseverance team divided the crater into a grid of "quadrangles" that were 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometers) in size and named the "quads" after national parks on Earth with similar geology.
The rover touched down in an area named after Arizona's Canyon de Chelly National Monument, which is in the Navajo Nation.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, along with Vice President Myron Lizer and other advisers, came up with words from things they saw at the landing site, Indian Country Today reported.
No threat to Earth as huge asteroid zooms past
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The largest asteroid to pass by Earth this year has made its closest approach, posing no threat of a cataclysmic collision but giving astronomers a rare chance to study a rock formed during the beginning of our solar system.
The asteroid was two million kilometres (1.25 million miles) away at its nearest, according to NASA—more than five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon but still close enough to be classified as a "potentially hazardous asteroid".
NASA tracks and catalogues such objects that could potentially slam into Earth and unleash enormous destruction, like the massive asteroid hit that wiped out 75 percent of life on the planet 66 million years ago.
Asteroid 2001 FO32, discovered 20 years ago, was too far to be that dangerous even as it reached its nearest point to Earth at around 1400 GMT Sunday, according to the Paris Observatory.
How ESA technology contributes to worldwide water security
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Whilst demand for fresh water is increasing, water sources are becoming depleted and polluted. With the Global Water Partnership believing that sustainable development will not be achieved without a water secure world, can we look to space to solve our water security problems on Earth?
When volcanoes go metal
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What would a volcano - and its lava flows - look like on a planetary body made primarily of metal? A pilot study from North Carolina State University offers insights into ferrovolcanism that could help scientists interpret landscape features on other worlds.
Volcanoes form when magma, which consists of the partially molten solids beneath a planet's surface, erupts. On Earth, that magma is Capturing all of light's data in one snapshot
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Engineers at Duke University are leading a nationwide effort to develop a camera that takes pictures worth not just a thousand words, but an entire encyclopedia.
Funded by a five-year, $7.5 million grant through the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) competition, the team will develop a "super camera" that captures just about every type of infor Boston company plans satellites for global weather radar
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A Boston weather services company, ClimaCell, plans to launch dozens of miniaturized weather satellites to provide more accurate predictions in remote areas.
The company, which already sells weather data services to such firms as Uber and Delta, won't say how many satellites it plans. ClimaCell claims to have new technology that will allow relatively inexpensive construction of the spac