Copernical Team
Growing alfalfa in Martian-like soil and filtering water using bacteria and Martian basalt
A team of researchers at Iowa State University has found that it may be possible to grow alfalfa successfully on Mars. The group has written a paper describing their work and have published it on the open-access site PLOS ONE.
As various groups around the world ponder the possibility of not only sending humans to Mars but of building shelters on the Red Planet that could sustain them—possibly indefinitely—work continues on ways to make such projects possible. Such projects have many challenges to overcome before they can become reality, one of which is how to feed people living so far away.
New water map of Mars will prove invaluable for future exploration
A new map of Mars is changing the way we think about the planet’s watery past, and showing where we should land in the future.
45 years after launch, NASA's Voyager probes still blazing trails billions of miles away
Forty-five years ago, NASA launched the first part of its most ambitious deep space mission in its history - a spacecraft called Voyager 2, which is still communicating with scientists on Earth at a distance of more than 12 billion miles away.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are both in interstellar space. In fact, they are one of only five space probes from Earth that have left the solar syst On the front lines of space innovation
George Lordos is not your typical graduate student. A degree in economics from Oxford University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a 20-year professional career were not the end of his learning journey. His longtime passion for space, particularly the prospect of making a sustainable society on Mars a reality, drew him back to school yet again, this time to study aeronautics a Hawaii seeks end to strife over astronomy on sacred mountain
50 years ago, NASA's Copernicus set the bar for space astronomy
At 6:28 a.m. EDT on Aug. 21, 1972, NASA's Copernicus satellite, the heaviest and most complex space telescope of its time, lit up the sky as it ascended into orbit from Launch Complex 36B at what is now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Initially known as Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO) C, it became OAO 3 once in orbit in the fashion of the time. But it was also renamed to honor the 500th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). The Polish astronomer formulated a model of the solar system with the Sun in the central position instead of Earth, breaking with 1,300 years of tradition and triggering a scientific revolution.
Fitted with the largest ultraviolet telescope ever orbited at the time as well as four co-aligned X-ray instruments, Copernicus was arguably NASA's first dedicated multiwavelength astronomy observatory. This makes it a forebear of operating satellites like NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which watches the sky in visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray light.
Where exactly will astronauts land on the moon? NASA is going to tell us
With NASA's first Artemis mission to the moon set to launch before the end of the month, teams are gearing up for future missions with astronauts including just exactly where the next people to set foot on the moon will be leaving their footprints.
NASA has announced a news conference for 2 p.m. Friday to reveal potential landing locations for the Artemis III mission, which is still targeting a launch in 2025, but not before the uncrewed Artemis I flight slated to launch on Aug. 29 and a crewed Artemis II flight in 2024 that will send humans back to the moon, but not only to orbit it.
Artemis III would mark humans' return to the surface for the first time since Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt left the surface on Dec. 14, 1972.
The Apollo program managed six landings with two humans each for a total of 12 to walk on the moon between 1969-1972.
After 45 years, the 5-billion-year legacy of the Voyager 2 interstellar probe is just beginning
On August 20 1977, 45 years ago, an extraordinary spacecraft left this planet on a journey like no other. Voyager 2 was going to show us, for the first time, what the outer solar system planets looked like close-up. It was like sending a fly to New York City and asking it to report back.
Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, on September 5. Attached to the flank of each Voyager was a Golden Record carrying greetings, sounds, images and music from Earth.
The spacecraft were more or less twins, but they had different trajectories and scientific instruments. While both flew by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 then sped onwards to interstellar space. Voyager 2 tarried to make the only visit ever to the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune.
NASA Identifies Candidate Regions for Landing Next Americans on Moon
As NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the Moon under Artemis, the agency has identified 13 candidate landing regions near the lunar South Pole. NASA rocket using 'astronomical forensics' will study exploded star
A NASA-funded sounding rocket mission will observe the remnants of an exploded star, uncovering new details about the eruption event while testing X-ray detector technologies for future missions.