Image: The heart of a lunar sensor
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 12:00
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The heart of the Exospheric Mass Spectrometer (EMS) is visible in this image of the key sensor that will study the abundance of lunar water and water ice for upcoming missions to the Moon.
This spectrometer is being delivered to NASA today as part of the PITMS instrument for its launch to the Moon later this year.
EMS is based on an 'ion trap', an ingenious detector device that allows researchers to identify and quantify sample atoms and molecules in a gas and allows to establish a corresponding mass spectrum. Scientists at The Open University and RAL Space are developing EMS under an ESA contract.
Lunar molecules entering the sensor are bombarded by electrons emitted by a heated wire to create ions. The resulting ions are stored within an electric field formed by a set of precisely-shaped electrodes. The ions are then released from this 'trap' in order of increasing mass/charge ratio into the detector that identifies and quantifies their chemical makeup.
This will allow the instrument to measure water and other molecules in the very thin atmosphere of the Moon throughout the lunar day to study a lunar 'water cycle' concept.
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A touch of sun New satellite data techniques reveal coastal sea-level rise
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 09:15 Write a comment
For the hundreds of millions of people living in coastal regions around the world, rising seas driven by climate change pose a direct threat. In order for authorities to plan appropriate protection strategies, accurate information on sea-level rise close to the coast is imperative. For various reasons, these measurements are difficult to get from satellites. However, new ESA-funded research demonstrates how a specific way of processing satellite altimetry data now makes it possible to determine sea-level change in coastal areas with millimetre per year accuracy, and even if the sea is covered by ice.
NOAA to take first step toward a small satellite constellation
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 08:00 Write a comment
It’s a good thing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has plenty of time to prepare for its next generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites — because the changes the agency is contemplating are dramatic.
Instead of flying satellites the size of pickup trucks like the current Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), NOAA is exploring the benefits of feeding data supplied by a constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit into weather forecast models.
The Making of JUICE - Episode 5
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 08:00 Write a comment
Video:
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The ESA Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) team has been working very hard to prepare the spacecraft for the first test in the one-year long environmental test campaign. This is the so-called Thermal Balance Thermal Vacuum (TBTV) test.
Juice is in the Large Space Simulator (LSS), a unique facility in Europe (run by the European Test Center, at ESA/ESTEC in the Netherlands) that can simulate the vacuum and cold and hot temperature conditions in space, and also the Sun itself!
The TBTV started on 17 June with the closure of the LSS and the "pumping-down", meaning the removal of
International Space Station update: June in orbit
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 05:35 Write a comment
Just over two months into his Alpha mission, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet has performed three spacewalks and supported numerous European and international experiments in microgravity. As the International Space Station crew embark on another busy month in low-Earth orbit, we reflect on some highlights from June.
Methane in the plumes of Saturn's moon Enceladus: Possible signs of life?
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
An unknown methane-producing process is likely at work in the hidden ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn's moon Enceladus, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy by scientists at the University of Arizona and Paris Sciences and Lettres University.
Giant water plumes erupting from Enceladus have long fascinated scientists and the public alike, inspiring research and speculatio What does it take to do a spacewalk
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
On June 25, astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet successfully completed an almost seven-hour EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk) to install solar panels on the International Space Station. What does it take to don a spacesuit and venture out on such a technical and dangerous mission? Surprisingly, one of the main criteria (besides the years of astronaut training) is body size. Skyroot Aerospace completes Series A funding
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
Skyroot Aerospace, India's leading private space launch company, is set to take the global stage with help from its recent $11 million Series A capital raise. The funding will be used to acquire new talent and complete the development of its Vikram-1 launch vehicle.
The company aims to reach orbit, with 90 percent less development cost than its competitors, as early as next year. This disr Mars helicopter begins to scout for Perseverance rover with longest flight
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has begun to scout missions for the Perseverance rover, completing its ninth and most challenging flight yet.
NASA announced the "most challenging flight yet" was a success Monday via Twitter.
Flight nine included a speed record for the aircraft at roughly 11 mph, which NASA called "a high-speed flight across unfriendly terrain, which will take us Ancient diamonds show Earth was primed for life's explosion at least 2.7 billion years ago
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
A unique study of ancient diamonds has shown that the basic chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere which makes it suitable for life's explosion of diversity was laid down at least 2.7 billion years ago. Volatile gases conserved in diamonds found in ancient rocks were present in similar proportions to those found in today's mantle, which in turn indicates that there has been no fundamenta Why does Mercury have a big iron core?
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
Scientists from Tohoku University and the University of Maryland have pinpointed the strong magnetic field of the early sun as the reason behind the radial variation of rock and metal in rocky planets' cores. This magnetic field, which pulled small iron grains inward, explains Mercury's big iron core and why Mars has so little iron in its core.
The details of their research were published A meteorite witness to the solar system's birth
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
In 2011, scientists confirmed a suspicion: There was a split in the local cosmos. Samples of the solar wind brought back to Earth by the Genesis mission definitively determined oxygen isotopes in the sun differ from those found on Earth, the moon and the other planets and satellites in the solar system.
Early in the solar system's history, material that would later coalesce into planets ha SwRI-led team addresses mystery of heavy elements in galactic cosmic rays
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
Scientists have used data from the Southwest Research Institute-led Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission to explain the presence of energetic heavy elements in galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). GCRs are composed of fast-moving energetic particles, mostly hydrogen ions called protons, the lightest and most abundant elements in the universe. Scientists have long debated how trace amounts of heavy io Satellite galaxies can carry on forming stars when they pass close to their parent galaxies
Wednesday, 07 July 2021 04:32 Write a comment
Historically most scientists thought that once a satellite galaxy has passed close by its higher mass parent galaxy its star formation would stop because the larger galaxy would remove the gas from it, leaving it shorn of the material it would need to make new stars. However, for the first time, a team led by the researcher at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), Arianna di Cintio, ha