Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 21, 2020
Lengthened to the size of a tennis court, the five-layer sunshield of NASA's fully assembled James Webb Space Telescope successfully completed a final series of large-scale deployment and tensioning tests. This milestone puts the observatory one step closer to its launch in 2021. "This is one of Webb's biggest accomplishments in 2020," said Alphonso Stewart, Webb deployment systems lead fo

Los Alamos NM (SPX) Dec 18, 2020
A combination of astrophysical measurements has allowed researchers to put new constraints on the radius of a typical neutron star and provide a novel calculation of the Hubble constant that indicates the rate at which the universe is expanding. "We studied signals that came from various sources, for example recently observed mergers of neutron stars," said Ingo Tews, a theorist in Nuclear

Moscow (Sputnik) Dec 25, 2020
The United States may buy a seat on Russia's Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft to deliver its astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) in the spring of 2021, a source in the space and rocket industry told Sputnik. In November, the Russian state space corporation of Roscosmos said that the crew of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, whose launch is scheduled for April 9, will consist of three Russia

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 25, 2020
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic demanded the attention of thousands of scientists, but they had a lot to look in to, including vaccines and treatments for the novel coronavirus. Many scientists kept their attention on the skies, searching for answers to cosmic mysteries and preparing for the next chapter in the history of human spaceflight. Here are five of the most astounding space-r

Changchun, China (XNA) Dec 25, 2020
An international team of researchers has identified over 109,000 previously unrecognized impact craters on the moon using machine learning methods. The study, led by researchers from Jilin University, was published in the journal Nature Communications. Impact craters are the most prominent lunar surface feature and occupy most of the moon's surface. With traditional automatic identif

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 25, 2020
It took fifteen years of imaging and nearly three years of stitching the pieces together to create the largest image ever made, the 8-trillion-pixel mosaic of Mars' surface. Now, the first study to utilize the image in its entirety provides unprecedented insight into the ancient river systems that once covered the expansive plains in the planet's southern hemisphere. These three billion-year-old

Beijing (XNA) Dec 25, 2020
China's lunar rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, has survived 719 Earth days and traveled 600.55 meters on the far side of the moon as of Tuesday. Both the lander and the rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have ended their work for the 25th lunar day, and switched to the dormant mode for the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of t

Sriharikota, India (SPX) Dec 25, 2020
India's second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2 was launched on 22nd July 2019 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota. The Orbiter which was injected into a lunar orbit on 2nd Sept 2019, carries 8 experiments to address many open questions on lunar science. All experiments have been performing well and the data received, suggests excellent capability to deliver on the pre-launch promises

Orlando FL (UPI) Dec 25, 2020
NASA is testing a space radiation protection vest aboard the International Space Station that could shield astronauts from deadly solar flares on missions to the moon and Mars. Solar storms with high doses of radiation are among the biggest threats to astronauts on deep space missions. The worst such storms could make space flyers too sick to function and eventually kill them. The ne

If the political, technical and budgetary stars align for NASA and its partners in coming years, the moon could be the go-to place as the century unfolds. Astronauts would again explore Earth’s celestial next-door neighbor, perhaps setting in motion future mining endeavors to extract ices likely lurking in sunlight-shy craters for processing into water, oxygen, and rocket propellant.