Copernical Team
Venus had Earth-like plate tectonics billions of years ago, study suggests
Venus, a scorching wasteland of a planet according to scientists, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, a new study found. The finding sets up tantalizing scenarios regarding the possibility of early life on Venus, its evolutionary past and the history of the solar system.
Writing in Nature Astronomy, a team of scientists led Uranus aurora discovery offers clues to habitable icy worlds
The presence of an infrared aurora on the cold, outer planet of Uranus has been confirmed for the first time by University of Leicester astronomers.
The discovery could shed light on the mysteries behind the magnetic fields of the planets of our solar system, and even on whether distant worlds might support life.
The team of scientists, supported by the Science and Technology Facilit NASA supports tests of dust sensor to aid lunar landings
A research team from the University of Central Florida recently tested an instrument designed to measure the size and speed of surface particles kicked up by the exhaust from a rocket-powered lander on the Moon or Mars. Supported by NASA's Flight Opportunities program, researchers evaluated the instrument in a series of flight tests on Astrobotic's Xodiac rocket-powered lander in Mojave, Califor Ascending Fang Turret: Sols 3991-3993
The Curiosity rover team has been preparing for the start of the Solar Conjunction in November, when contact with all Mars spacecraft will be impossible for three weeks since Mars will be behind the Sun as seen from Earth. During that time, Curiosity will be following a long plan of instructions which were confirmed to have been successfully uploaded to the rover earlier this week. For now, Curi NASA is locating ice on Mars with this new map
Buried ice will be a vital resource for the first people to set foot on Mars, serving as drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel. But it would also be a major scientific target: Astronauts or robots could one day drill ice cores much as scientists do on Earth, uncovering the climate history of Mars and exploring potential habitats (past or present) for microbial life.
The need Smithsonian set to open Asteroid Bennu sample display
The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History will unveil the first public display of a sample of Bennu-a carbon-rich, near-Earth asteroid-to museumgoers Friday, Nov. 3. The rocky fragment was collected from the asteroid by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, the first U.S. space mission to sample the surface of a planetary body since Apollo 17 in 1972. Samples from Bennu may provide insights into Tech agreement sets stage for U.S. private sector space launch sites in Australia
The United States and Australia marked a significant milestone in their long partnership with the signing of a bilateral tech agreement Thursday.
The assistant secretary for international security and nonproliferation at the U.S. State Department, C.S. Eliot Kang, and the Australian Ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, signed the U.S.-Australia Technology Safeguards Agreement in an NASA updates Commercial Crew planning manifest
NASA and its industry partners Boeing and SpaceX are planning for the next set of missions to the International Space Station for the agency's Commercial Crew Program.
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NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the orbiting laboratory is targeted to launch no earlier than mid-February. The mission will carry NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and m Asteroids in the solar system could contain undiscovered, superheavy elements
For centuries, the quest for new elements was a driving force in many scientific disciplines. Understanding an atom's structure and the development of nuclear science allowed scientists to accomplish the old goal of alchemists—turning one element into another.
Over the past few decades, scientists in the United States, Germany and Russia have figured out how to use special tools to combine two atomic nuclei and create new, superheavy elements.
These heavy elements usually aren't stable. Heavier elements have more protons, or positively charged particles in the nucleus; some that scientists have created have up to 118. With that many protons, the electromagnetic repulsive forces between protons in the atomic nuclei overwhelm the attractive nuclear force that keeps the nucleus together.
Scientists have predicted for a long time that elements with around 164 protons could have a relatively long half-life, or even be stable.
NASA tech breathes life into potentially game-changing antenna design
Some 30 years ago, a young engineer named Christopher Walker was home in the evening making chocolate pudding when he got what turned out to be a very serendipitous call from his mother.
Taking the call, he shut off the stove and stretched plastic wrap over the pot to keep the pudding fresh. By the time he returned, the cooling air in the pot had drawn the wrap into a concave shape, and in that warped plastic, he saw something—the magnified reflection of an overhead lightbulb—that gave him an idea that could revolutionize space-based sensing and communications.
That idea became the Large Balloon Reflector (LBR), an inflatable device that creates wide collection apertures that weigh a fraction of today's deployable antennas.