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Copernical Team
ANU scientists use deep planetary scan to confirm Martian core
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Lumpy Bumpy: Sols 3635-3636
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Meteorite impact provides a glimpse beneath Mars' surface
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NASA's Lunar Flashlight ready to search for the lunar ice
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Starshade competition challenges students to block starlight for observing exoplanets
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China launches experimental satellite into space
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SpaceX California launch sends 53 more Starlink satellites into orbit
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Beyond Gravity wins major contract from ULA for Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation launches
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Photo from NASA satellite shows the sun was 'smiling' this week
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![Credit: NASA Photo from NASA satellite shows the sun was 'smiling' this week](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2022/photo-from-nasa-satell.jpg)
The sun was in a good mood this week, or at least that's what it looked like in a photo published by NASA.
A photo of the sun taken from a NASA satellite and time-stamped Thursday morning appears to show a smile on the surface of our nearest star.
It's not the first time this week the cheerful pattern appeared.
"Today, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the sun 'smiling,'" NASA said in a Wednesday tweet. "Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space."
According to SpaceWeather.com, the sun is spewing a triple stream of solar wind toward Earth. This could produce auroras here on Earth as early as Saturday, the website said.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory is a satellite that's in orbit around the Earth, with sensors pointed at the sun to take a variety of measurements of the sun and solar activity.
One of the mission's goals is to see how the sun's magnetic field is generated and structured, and how it impacts life on Earth and our telecommunications systems.
Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon
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![(Left) Photograph of lunar soil and (Right) SEM image of the Cu/lunar soil. The scale bar represents 20 μm. Credit: Science China Press Scientists utilize lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on moon in an unmanned manner](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2022/scientists-utilize-lun.jpg)
Building up a lunar settlement has been the ultimate aim of lunar exploitation since humanity's first step on the moon. Yet, limited fuel and oxygen supplies restrict human survival on the moon.
Combining photovoltaic and electrocatalysis, the artificial production of hydrocarbon fuels along with oxygen using carbon dioxide and water as the feedstocks has been demonstrably feasible on the Earth and is recognized as a potential strategy to be imitated in extraterrestrial sites. With the rapid progress of moon exploration, researchers have discovered that the moon's surface has considerable carbon dioxide and water reserves, which further confirms the feasibility of the idea.
Against this background, the joint research team of the University of Science and Technology of China, Nanjing University and China Academy of Space Technology found that the lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e 5 mission can be used as a catalyst to drive the electrocatalytic CO2 conversion for fuel and oxygen production.