Copernical Team
Data from Insight reveals size of Mars's core
An international team of researchers studying seismic data collected by NASA's Insight spacecraft has used the data to calculate the size of Mars' core. The group plans to discuss their findings at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which will be held virtually due to the pandemic. As a prelude to the conference, team member Simon Stähler has made available a prerecorded presentation for those interested. The team intends to submit their results to a peer-reviewed journal in the near future.
Up until now, the only celestial bodies that have had their cores measured were Earth and the moon. To make such measurements, scientists have used seismic data from sensors that detect the sounds made by quakes. Eager to do the same for Mars, NASA sent Insight to the red planet—it landed near the planet's equator back in 2018 and began listening for Marsquakes soon thereafter. To date, sensors aboard the craft have captured seismic data for approximately 500 quakes.
Biden picks former senator who flew in space to lead NASA
President Joe Biden has chosen a former senator from Florida who flew on the space shuttle just days before the Challenger launch accident to lead NASA.
Biden on Friday announced his intent to nominate Bill Nelson as the space agency's administrator.
Nelson, 78, grew up near Cape Canaveral and was serving as a Democratic congressman when he launched aboard space shuttle Columbia in January 1986. His commander was Charles Bolden Jr., who later served as NASA administrator under President Barack Obama—at Nelson's urging.
Nelson was elected in 2000 to the Senate, where he served until his defeat in 2018.
If confirmed by the Senate, Nelson will become NASA's 14th administrator, succeeding another former member of Congress, Jim Bridenstine, a Republican from Oklahoma.
This is a critical time for NASA as momentum accelerates in the commercial space program.
SpaceX is about to launch its third flight of astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA; Boeing is expected join the crew delivery effort later this year. Space station supply runs, meanwhile, have been handled by private companies under contract to NASA for nearly a decade.
Vacancy for the post of ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes
The European Space Agency is currently looking for a new Director of Earth Observation Programmes, to join its Executive Board and support the Director General, with responsibility for relevant ESA programmes and overall objectives.
Week in images: 15 - 19 March 2021
Week in images: 15 - 19 March 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Earth from Space: Amazon rainforest
Ahead of the International Day of Forests, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over part of the Amazon rainforest in the Amazonas – the largest state in Brazil.
Wi-Fi on planes boosted by satellite constellation
Flight passengers will soon be able to connect to their families and colleagues on Earth via low-orbit telecommunications satellites.
NASA completes engine test firing of moon rocket on 2nd try
NASA completed an engine test firing of its moon rocket Thursday, after the first attempt in January ended prematurely.
The world's oldest crater from a meteorite isn't an impact crater after all
Several years after scientists discovered what was considered the oldest crater a meteorite made on the planet, another team found it's actually the result of normal geological processes.
During fieldwork at the Archean Maniitsoq structure in Greenland, an international team of scientists led by the University of Waterloo's Chris Yakymchuk found the features of this region are inconsistent Ancient leaves preserved under a mile of Greenland's ice
In 1963, inside a covert U.S. military base in northern Greenland, a team of scientists began drilling down through the Greenland ice sheet. Piece by piece, they extracted an ice core 4 inches across and nearly a mile long. At the very end, they pulled up something else - 12 feet of frozen soil.
The ice told a story of Earth's climate history. The frozen soil was examined, set aside and th Mapping Liberia's ecosystems to understand their value
Conservation scientist Trond Larsen and his team trekked through a remote forest in Liberia, recording the plants, animals, and insects that they saw. They noted whether the forest was intact or degraded. Far above their heads, NASA's Earth-observing satellites collected data about the terrain as the satellites continued their well-travelled orbits over Africa.
The data collected by the te