Washington (AFP) April 19, 2021
NASA successfully flew the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars on Monday, according to data and images sent back to Earth. "Altimeter data confirms that Ingenuity has performed its first flight - the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet," announced an engineer in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the control room cheered. A short clip sent back by the Perseverance rover showed

At ESA, every day is Earth Day. As we humans continue to subject our home planet to increasing pressures, we are better placed than ever to understand and monitor the consequences of what we inflict. Astronauts onboard the International Space Station give us the human perspective of how beautiful Earth is, while satellites orbiting above return systematic measures to take the pulse of our planet 24 hours a day.

These measurements allow us to understand how Earth works as a system and how human activity is changing natural processes, leading to climate change. This information is fundamental to global climate

Image: Alpha poster

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Apr 16, 2021
Eleven billion miles away - more than four times the distance from us to Pluto - lies the boundary of our solar system's magnetic bubble, the heliopause. Here the Sun's magnetic field, stretching through space like an invisible cobweb, fizzles to nothing. Interstellar space begins. "It's really the largest boundary of its kind we can study," said Walt Harris, space physicist at the Univers

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 16, 2021
Research shows that a new telescope could detect a potential signature of life on other planets in as little as 60 hours. "What really surprised me about the results is that we may realistically find signs of life on other planets in the next 5 to 10 years," said Caprice Phillips, a graduate student at The Ohio State University, who will share preliminary findings at a press conference dur

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Apr 16, 2021
NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission has given scientists the first complete look at Venus' orbital dust ring, a collection of microscopic dust particles that circulates around the Sun along Venus' orbit. Though earlier missions have made some observations of Venus' orbital dust ring, Parker Solar Probe's images are the first to show the planet's dust ring for nearly its entire 360-degree span arou

Washington (AFP) April 19, 2021
NASA is hoping to make history early Monday when the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter attempts the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. The space agency had originally planned the flight for April 11 but postponed it over a software issue that was identified during a planned high-speed test of the aircraft's rotors. The issue has since been resolved, and the four-pound (1.8 kilog

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 17, 2021
NASA has announced that it is targeting Monday for the first flight of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. A press release from the agency said the helicopter is now scheduled to attempt to fly about 3:30 a.m. EDT, and that data from the flight will return to Earth a few hours after the autonomous flight. NASA's Mars rover, Perseverance, carried the tiny, four-pound helicopter under i