Copernical Team
Antimatter from laser pincers
In the depths of space, there are celestial bodies where extreme conditions prevail: Rapidly rotating neutron stars generate super-strong magnetic fields. And black holes, with their enormous gravitational pull, can cause huge, energetic jets of matter to shoot out into space. An international physics team with the participation of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now proposed
NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for the Europa Clipper Mission
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth's first mission to conduct detailed investigations of Jupiter's moon Europa. The Europa Clipper mission will launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total contract award amount for launc
The anatomy of a planet
Since early 2019, researchers have been recording and analysing marsquakes as part of the InSight mission. This relies on a seismometer whose data acquisition and control electronics were developed at ETH Zurich. Using this data, the researchers have now measured the red planet's crust, mantle and core - data that will help determine the formation and evolution of Mars and, by extension, the ent
China's Mars rover travels 585 meters on red planet
China's Mars rover Zhurong has traveled 585 meters on the surface of the red planet as of Friday, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. On Friday, the Mars orbiter marked its first anniversary of operation. Now it is about 378 million km away from Earth. The delay of its one-way communication was around 21 minutes, said the
Insight data offers clues to Mars' deep interior, formation in solar system
Marsquake data collected by NASA's InSight lander has allowed planetary scientists to more accurately characterize Mars' deep interior, as well as offered clues to the Red Planet's origins. "Insight has confirmed that our view that Mars is a planet that was once almost entirely molten and separated into a crust, mantle and core as it cooled," Amir Khan of ETH Zurich said Friday during a
Better understanding of Earth's atmospheric chemistry from studying Mars?
Long-term studies of ozone and water vapour in the atmosphere of Mars could lead to better understanding of atmospheric chemistry for the Earth. A new analysis of data from ESA's Mars Express mission has revealed that our knowledge of the way these atmospheric gases interact with each other is incomplete. Using four martian years of observations from the SPICAM (Spectroscopy for the Invest
The Red Planet has a larger core and a thinner crust
Mars' surface is known in great detail through exploration using orbiting spacecraft. But until now its interior structure could only be derived indirectly or simulated using computational models. With the participation of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), NASA's InSight mission has provided surprising new discoveries. The core of our planetary n
Scientists unveil European Mars rover's meteorite-hunting instruments
The ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin, scheduled to launch in 2022, is tasked with hunting for past life on the Red Planet. Most of the rover's scientific probing will be focused on the first six inches of Mars' crust, but the spacecraft will also be programmed to identify, sample and analyze meteorites strewn across the Martian surface. Mission scientists unveiled the rover's mete
SpaceX to launch NASA's Europa Clipper on Falcon Heavy rocket in 2024
NASA on Friday awarded SpaceX the $178 million contract to launch the agency's Europa Clipper mission to study Jupiter's fourth-largest moon. The mission is expected to depart October 2024 on the private aerospace company's Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "Europa Clipper will conduct a detailed survey of Europa and use a sophisticated suite of scienc
NASA selects SpaceX for mission to Jupiter moon Europa
NASA on Friday said it had selected SpaceX to launch a planned voyage to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, a huge win for Elon Musk's company as it sets its sights deeper into the solar system.
The Europa Clipper mission will launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the total contract worth $178 million.
The mission was previously supposed to take off on NASA's own Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns, with critics calling it a "jobs program" for the state of Alabama where much of the development work is taking place.