A pocket guide to Mars: Now you can buy an atlas for the Red Planet
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 14:10
Write a comment
A pocket atlas of Mars has been published that uses geographic techniques developed for terrestrial maps to reveal a wealth of information about the surface of the Red Planet, as well as its climate and cloud cover. The atlas is being presented this week at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
The 84-page atlas is currently available in English, Hungarian and Czech, and will be available in a digital format later this year. The atlas, which has been developed for use in astronomy clubs and schools, was funded by the Europlanet Society through its Central European Hub.
The main part of the atlas consists of a series of double spreads showing each of the 30 cartographic quadrangles into which the surface of Mars has been divided by the US Geological Survey. The landforms created by lava, wind, water, and ice are shown separately on a topographic base map, highlighting features such as dune fields, mountain peaks, volcanic calderas, caves, ancient dried-up lakes and deltas, and fault lines.
Ten years of safer skies with Europe's other satnav system
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 14:00 Write a comment
A Titan mission could refuel on site and return a sample to Earth
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 12:30 Write a comment
This decade promises to be an exciting time for space exploration. Already, the Perseverance rover has landed on Mars and begun conducting science operations. Later this year, the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), and Lucy spacecraft (the first mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids) will launch. Before the decade is out, missions will also be sent to Europa and Titan to extend the search for signs of life in our solar system.
Currently, NASA's plan for exploring Titan (Saturn's largest moon) is to send a nuclear-powered quadcopter named Dragonfly to explore the atmosphere and surface. However, another possibility that was presented this year as part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is to send a sample-return vehicle with Dragonfly that could fuel up using liquid methane harvested from Titan's surface.
Known as A Titan Sample Return Using In-Situ Propellants, this mission would present some serious advantages over conventional sample-return missions. Ordinarily, missions to distant celestial objects either need to bring along enough propellant for the return trip (which means a lot of added mass and higher costs), or to have a nuclear battery that can provide power for several years.
Aerojet not concerned about any changes to Artemis program
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 11:37 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — Aerojet Rocketdyne doesn’t expect any potential changes to the Artemis program to have much of an effect on its business supplying engines for NASA’s Space Launch System.
Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference March 15, Dan Boehle, chief financial officer of Aerojet Rocketdyne, played down any impacts of possible changes to the Artemis program by the new Biden administration, including delaying a human return to the surface of the moon to later in the decade.
Scientists determine the origin of extra-solar object 'Oumuamua
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 11:26 Write a comment
In 2017, the first interstellar object from beyond our solar system was discovered via the Pan-STARRS astronomical observatory in Hawaii. It was named 'Oumuamua, meaning "scout" or "messenger" in Hawaiian. The object was like a comet, but with features that were just odd enough to defy classification.
Two Arizona State University astrophysicists, Steven Desch and Alan Jackson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, set out to explain the odd features of 'Oumuamua and have determined that it is likely a piece of a Pluto-like planet from another solar system.
The history of space debris creation
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 11:00 Write a comment
Image:
Learning lessons from the past on space debris Ten years of safer skies with Europe’s other satnav system
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 10:02 Write a comment
With 26 satellites in orbit and more than two billion receivers in use, Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system has made a massive impact. But our continent has another satnav system that has been providing safety-of-life services for ten years now – chances are that you’ve benefited from it without noticing.
Maps to improve forest biomass estimates
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 09:00 Write a comment
Fluctuations in the carbon-rich biomass held within the world’s forests can contribute to, or slow, climate change. A series of new maps of above ground biomass, generated using space observations, is set to help our understanding of global carbon cycling and support forest management, emissions reduction and sustainable development policy goals.
Astronauts in crewed missions to Mars could misread vital emotional cues
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 07:36 Write a comment
Living for nearly 2 months in simulated weightlessness has a modest but widespread negative effect on cognitive performance that may not be counteracted by short periods of artificial gravity, finds a new study published in Frontiers in Physiology. While cognitive speed on most tests initially declined but then remained unchanged over time in simulated microgravity, emotion recognition speed continued to worsen. In testing, research participants were more likely to identify facial expressions as angry and less likely as happy or neutral.
"Astronauts on long space missions, very much like our research participants, will spend extended durations in microgravity, confined to a small space with few other astronauts," reports Mathias Basner, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
ISS crew once again uses tea leaves to locate air leak in Russian module Zvezda
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:01 Write a comment
The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) is once again using tea leaves to find an air leak in three possible locations in the Russian Zvezda module, according to a communication of the crew with Earth, broadcast by NASA.
A specialist from the Russian Mission Control Center told cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov that thin strips of paper that were released in the module's access section e New study challenges long-held theory of fate of Martian Water
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:01 Write a comment
Billions of years ago, according to geological evidence, abundant water flowed across Mars and collected into pools, lakes, and deep oceans. New NASA-funded research shows a substantial quantity of its water - between 30 and 99% - is trapped within minerals in the planet's crust, challenging the current theory that due to the Red Planet's low gravity, its water escaped into space.
Early Ma Is there life on mars today and where
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:01 Write a comment
In a comment published in Nature Astronomy, Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, challenges assumptions about the possibility of modern life on Mars held by many in the scientific community.
As the Perseverance rover embarks on a journey to seek signs of ancient life in the 3.7 billion years old Jezero crater, Cabrol theorizes that not Juno reveals dark origins of one of Jupiter's grand light shows
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:01 Write a comment
New results from the Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument on NASA's Juno mission reveal for the first time the birth of auroral dawn storms - the early morning brightening unique to Jupiter's spectacular aurorae.
These immense, transient displays of light occur at both Jovian poles and had previously been observed only by ground-based and Earth-orbiting observatories, notably NASA's Hubble SwRI researcher theorizes worlds with underground oceans support, conceal life
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:01 Write a comment
One of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath layers of rock and ice are common in our solar system. Such worlds include the icy satellites of the giant planets, like Europa, Titan and Enceladus, and distant planets like Pluto.
In a report presented at the 52nd annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC 52) this ASU scientists determine origin of strange interstellar object
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:01 Write a comment
In 2017, the first interstellar object from beyond our solar system was discovered via the Pan-STARRS astronomical observatory in Hawaii. It was named 'Oumuamua, meaning "scout" or "messenger" in Hawaiian. The object was like a comet, but with features that were just odd enough to defy classification.
Two Arizona State University astrophysicists, Steven Desch and Alan Jackson of the School