NASA plans to send lunar rover to Nobile region of moon's South Pole
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14NASA's ice-hunting VIPER lunar rover, scheduled to arrive on the moon in 2023, would land near the Nobile Crater on the lunar South Pole, the space agency announced Monday. The crater offers a relatively safe area to hunt for water ice, which is considered crucial for long-term Artemis missions to explore the moon and eventually Mars, NASA officials said. The ice could provide a water s
NASA offers new website to look at Mars rover images
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14Fans of NASA's Mars rover Perseverance can now see the robotic explorer and its activity in a 3D depiction of the Red Planet terrain via a new website. The site, Explore with Perseverance, is updated when the rover makes a significant move. NASA has uploaded seven locations, starting with the Octavia E. Butler Landing Site at which the spacecraft landed Feb. 18. Software develope
Lunar crater named after Arctic Explorer Matthew Henson
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14The International Astronomical Union has named a crater at the Moon's south pole after the Arctic explorer Matthew Henson, a Black man who in 1909 was one of the first people to stand at the very top of the world. The proposal to name the crater after Henson came from Jordan Bretzfelder, an Exploration Science summer intern with the Lunar and Planetary Institute, in Houston, TX, which is a membe
Mars habitability limited by its small size, isotope study suggests
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14Water is essential for life on Earth and other planets, and scientists have found ample evidence of water in Mars' early history. But Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests a fundamental reason: Mars may be just too small to hold onto large amounts of water. Remote sensing studies and analyses of Martian meteorites datin
DOD taking measures to protect nuclear weapons, space assets
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14The Defense Department relies on nuclear-armed bombers, submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as space-based sensors, to provide a strategic deterrence umbrella for the homeland and to protect deployed forces, allies and partners. However, sensitive microelectronics used in these assets could be vulnerable to high levels of ionizing radiation caused by a number of fac
China brings astronauts back, advances closer to "space station era"
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14Having worked in the space station core module Tianhe for three months - the longest-ever human space mission in the Chinese history, three "taikonauts" of the Shenzhou-12 crew returned to Earth on Friday, hitting a new milestone in China's space exploration. With a resolution for self-reliance in aerospace technology and an open mind for international cooperation, these years China has be
Mushballs stash away missing ammonia at Uranus and Neptune
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14Mushballs - giant, slushy hailstones made from a mixture of ammonia and water - may be responsible for an atmospheric anomaly at Neptune and Uranus that has been puzzling scientists. A study presented by Tristan Guillot at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2021 shows that mushballs could be highly effective at carrying ammonia deep into the ice giants' atmospheres, hiding the gas from detec
Observations in stellar factory indicates start of planet production
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14Using radio data from the ALMA observatory and physical modelling, astronomers led by Kamber Schwarz (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and University of Arizona) have managed to determine the mass of a potential "planet factory," the protoplanetary disk around the star GM Aurigae. From their reconstruction, which includes a determination of the disk's temperature profile, the astronomers deduc
How planets may be seeded with the chemicals necessary for life
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14Analysis of unique "fingerprints" in light emitted from material surrounding young stars has revealed "significant reservoirs" of large organic molecules necessary to form the basis of life. Dr John Ilee, Research Fellow at the University of Leeds who led the study, says the findings suggest that the basic chemical conditions that resulted in life on Earth could exist more widely across th
This is what it looks like when a black hole snacks on a star
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:14While black holes and toddlers don't seem to have much in common, they are remarkably similar in one aspect: Both are messy eaters, generating ample evidence that a meal has taken place. But whereas one might leave behind droppings of pasta or splatters of yogurt, the other creates an aftermath of mind-boggling proportions. When a black hole gobbles up a star, it produces what astronomers
NASA's mixtape for extraterrestrial civilizations
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 12:12In 1977, NASA created two LP records with tracks of global music, greetings in different languages, sounds of the planet, and sonified images, and then attached them to the two robotic probes launched that year as part of the Voyager space mission bound for the outer solar system and beyond. This Golden Record, said Alexander Rehding, Fanny Peabody Professor of Music, is "effectively a mixtape for extraterrestrial civilizations, a sign that we exist and a glimpse of what human culture is about.
Tomorrow.io orders demo satellites for rain-tracking constellation
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 11:41Meteorological intelligence startup Tomorrow.io says it picked California-based Astro Digital to build the first two of potentially dozens of small satellites equipped with storm-tracking radars to improve weather forecasts.
NASA picks landing site for VIPER lunar rover
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 10:24NASA has selected a crater near the south pole of the moon as the landing site for a robotic rover to search for water ice that could be a resource for future human expeditions.
NASA selects Moon site for ice-hunting rover
Tuesday, 21 September 2021 06:54NASA on Monday announced it would land an ice-seeking rover on a region of the Moon's south pole called the Nobile Crater in 2023.
The space agency hopes the robot will confirm the presence of water ice just below the surface, which could one day be converted into rocket fuel for missions to Mars and deeper into the cosmos.
"Nobile Crater is an impact crater near the south pole that was born through a collision with another smaller celestial body," Lori Glaze, director of NASA's planetary science division told reporters.
It is one of the solar system's coldest regions, and has only so far been probed from afar using sensors such as those aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.
Space Force to brief industry on its future architecture for space-based missile warning
Monday, 20 September 2021 22:02The Space Warfighting Analysis Center will brief industry representatives Oct. 27 on the results of its first “force design” study focused on space-based missile warning and missile tracking