Uranus to begin reversing path across the night sky on Wednesday
Thursday, 25 August 2022 10:01As part of a cosmic phenomenon called retrograde motion, Uranus - the second-to-last planet in our solar system - will reverse its eastward course on Wednesday and begin moving west in the sky for a few months. Retrograde motion occurs as the Earth moves around the sun and the stellar views at night change little by little. The orbit, in turn, makes objects like planets in our solar s
Curiosity Versus the Sand Again: Sols 3566-3567
Thursday, 25 August 2022 10:01The "road" through Paraitepuy pass continues to challenge our intrepid Curiosity rover. We attempted to cross another large sand ripple (formally called a transverse aeolian ridge, or TAR) in Tuesday's plan. However, we found out this morning that Curiosity had automatically stopped the drive when the rover's wheels slipped more than expected right before they reached the crest of the TAR.
Sol 3565: Over, Around, and Through
Thursday, 25 August 2022 10:01We filled much of today's plan imaging the wonders around and ahead of us as we pick our way through "Paraitepuy Pass" - the towering buttes, geologic relationships, and layers that have drawn our attention for a literal decade. But it is also fun to look back on how we got to where we are. The image above traces a small segment of our path traversing the obstacles that guard the pass - ov
Slow and steady does it on Sol 3564
Thursday, 25 August 2022 10:01We are making slow but steady progress through the "Paraitepuy pass," having passed the approximate halfway point over the weekend. Today's one sol plan found us staring around the corner at the neck of the pass and considering our drive path forward. Sometimes, our drive forward is smooth and flat ... neither word can be used here! Our drive forward has abundant sand and sharp rocks, so f
Scientists say exoplanet 100 light years from Earth may be covered with deep ocean
Thursday, 25 August 2022 10:01A team of researchers have discovered an exoplanet about 100 light years away from Earth in the Draco constellation, and they say the world appears to be covered in a deep ocean. The exoplanet - called TOI-1452b - is slightly larger than the Earth and is located in a "Goldilocks zone," where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist. Therefore, astronomer
Keele researchers study turbulence raging inside distant stars
Thursday, 25 August 2022 10:01Stunning new images created by Keele researchers highlight the turbulent flow of energy inside distant stars. They were created using the 3D simulation software "PROMPI", which scientists have been using to investigate stellar interiors with the aim of understanding the science of stellar evolution and black holes. For years scientists have used one-dimensional models to explain and
Team Miles prepares for inflight test of new thruster technology
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 22:29Team Miles founder Wesley Faler has spent more than a decade developing and refining the water-fueled plasma thrusters set to fly for the first time on a cubesat launching alongside the NASA Artemis-1 mission.
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‘State of the space industrial base’ report calls for national plan to compete with China
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 19:39The "State of the Space Industrial Base 2022" report urges the U.S. government to lay out a national strategy for space that embraces the private sector as a key partner
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Working in tandem: NASA's networks empower Artemis I
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 19:16NASA's Artemis missions are returning humanity to the Moon and beginning a new era of lunar exploration. Soon, the agency plans to launch the Artemis I mission, an uncrewed flight test that will take a human-rated spacecraft farther than any before.
Although uncrewed, Artemis I will test essential systems for future crewed missions to the lunar region, including the first-ever launch of NASA's most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS rocket will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and enter a complex orbit to bring the Orion spacecraft to the Moon.
NASA Wallops launch supports SpEED Demon testing science instruments
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 19:12A sounding rocket launch testing science instruments for future missions was successfully conducted at 9:16 p.m. EDT, Aug. 23, 2022, from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The Terrier-Improved Malemute carried the Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics Demonstration mission, or SpEED Demon, to an apogee of 100 miles before descending and landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The experiment was not planned to be recovered.
The purpose of the SpEED Demon mission was to test new instrumentation along with heritage instruments that have flown on other sounding rocket missions, but not together.
The SpEED Demon instruments will be further improved based on results from this launch and will subsequently fly on a science mission targeted for summer 2024 from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and possibly many other sounding rocket opportunities.
"This was an excellent mission. Preliminary analysis shows that we flew through a Sporadic E event on the downleg and the data looks great. We'll be looking at the performance of all instruments to get us ready for the 2024 launch," said Aroh Barjatya, SpEED Demon principal investigator and director of the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
EXPLAINER: NASA tests new moon rocket, 50 years after Apollo
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 17:58Here's what a black hole sounds like, according to NASA. Yes, it's 'frightening'
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 16:50NASA this week shared an audio clip on social media that allows you to "hear" a black hole.
No surprise, the sound is terrifying.
NASA Exoplanets, a team at the agency focused on planets and other information outside of our solar system, tweeted the 34-second clip on Sunday and said there's a "misconception" that there is no sound in space.
But they explained that "A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've picked up actual sound. Here it's amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole."
You wouldn't be able to hear what a black hole really sounds like
NASA initially released the so-called "sonification" earlier this year, explaining that researchers have "associated" the black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster with sound since 2003.
"This is because astronomers discovered that pressure waves sent out by the black hole caused ripples in the cluster's hot gas that could be translated into a note—one that humans cannot hear some 57 octaves below middle C," NASA confirmed in a news release.
The signals "are being heard 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency," NASA added.
Megaconstellation startup E-Space expands leadership team
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 16:31E-Space has expanded its leadership team as the startup prepares to start serial production next year for a network of potentially hundreds of thousands of satellites.
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Op-ed | The Rare Earth Ripple Effect of Russia’s War on Ukraine
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 16:05In the six months since Russia invaded Ukraine, a litany of follow-on effects from the conflict have reverberated throughout the globe, many of which could achieve permanence as a new norm or standard.
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NASA to fly six scientific balloons from New Mexico
Wednesday, 24 August 2022 14:35NASA's Scientific Balloon Program is moving full-steam ahead into the fall 2022 campaign with six scientific, engineering, and student balloon flights supporting 17 missions. The flights are scheduled to launch from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, from mid-August through mid-October.
With one balloon already off the ground, a test flight carrying several different technology payloads and other piggyback missions, the team hopes to launch the five remaining balloons by the end of the launch window in support of multiple science and technology initiatives.
"Our balloon platforms can lift several thousand pounds to the edge of space, allowing for multiple, various scientific instruments, technologies, and education payloads to fly together on one balloon flight," said Debbie Fairbrother, Scientific Balloon Program chief at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Some of the science missions flying this campaign include the BALloon-Based Observations for sunlit Aurora (BALBOA), testing a wide-view infrared camera designed to study daytime auroras; the Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment—Coronagraph (PICTURE-C) mission that will directly image and characterize dust and debris orbiting nearby stars with the possibility of detecting bright, gas giant planets outside our solar system using a telescope; the TinMan mission hopes to better understand the effects of thermal neutrons in Earth's atmosphere on aircraft electronics; and the 16th High-Altitude Student Platform (HASP) mission that will fly 12 student-built payloads.