The 17th flight of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on Dec. 5 pushed the total flight time past the 30-minute mark. The 117-second sortie brought history's first aircraft to operate from the surface of another world closer to its original airfield, "Wright Brothers Field," where it will await the arrival of the agency's Perseverance Mars rover, currently exploring "South Séítah" region of Mars's Jezero Crater.

Sputnik Planitia, a basin on the surface of Pluto filled with nitrogen ice, displays an astonishing pattern of flat polygons separated by narrow troughs. This feature is a sign of thermal convection within the icy mass that constantly renews its surface. Until now the driver of this process was a riddle.

However, in their study published in Nature on 15 December 2021, researchers from the CNRS, ENS de Lyon, and the University of Exeter unveil the mystery behind the formation of these structures. Despite the low level of solar radiation, the nitrogen ice here is regularly sublimated, i.e., transformed directly into gas without first becoming a liquid.

This sublimation results in local cooling that causes movements in the ice layer on the scale of 100,000 years, which is comparable to the speed of tectonic plate motion on Earth.

On Saturday, Dec. 11, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope was secured on top of the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

After its arrival in the final assembly building, Webb was slowly hoisted nearly 130 feet and then perfectly aligned on top of the Ariane 5, after which technicians bolted Webb's launch vehicle adapter down to the rocket. This whole process was performed under strict safety and cleanliness policies, as it was one of the most delicate operations during the entire launch campaign for Webb. A custom 'shower curtain,' already installed between the two platforms where technicians worked to connect Webb to its launch vehicle, served as the walls of a clean room to keep the observatory dirt-free.

The next step ahead is to encapsulate Webb inside the Ariane 5's specially adapted fairing.

Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. As part of an international collaboration agreement, the European Space Agency (ESA) is providing the telescope's launch services using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle.