Year in images 2021

Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2021

Paris (AFP) Dec 17, 2021
For Hollywood A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, their new end-of-the-world comedy was a chance to send a little respect back to scientists. In "Don't Look Up", released on December 24 on Netflix, they play two astronomers who discover a comet will wipe out life on Earth within six months, but then try in vain to get politicians and the media to take the threat seriously.

Huntsville AL (SPX) Dec 17, 2021
NASA's newest X-ray observatory - the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE - extended its boom successfully Dec. 15, giving IXPE the ability to see high-energy X-rays. The mission, which launched on Dec. 9, is one step closer to studying some of the most energetic and mysterious places in the universe in a new way. The IXPE observatory features thre

Manoa HI (SPX) Dec 17, 2021
Sophisticated analysis of a rock sample taken from the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission revealed new information about the complex cooling and evolutionary history of the Moon. The findings, from University of Hawai'i (UH) at Manoa researchers, were published in Nature Communications. Apollo 17 astronauts collected the rock sample troctolite 76535 from the Moon's surface in 1972, and it r

Paris (ESA) Dec 17, 2021
The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has spotted significant amounts of water at the heart of Mars' dramatic canyon system, Valles Marineris. The water, which is hidden beneath Mars' surface, was found by the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)'s FREND instrument, which is mapping the hydrogen - a measure of water content - in the uppermost metre of Mars' soil. While water is known to exi

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 17, 2021
Six months ago, we began the dedicated investigation of the Jezero crater floor, and now in December 2021 we are more than halfway through this first science campaign. Since our first sampling experience at Roubion and our first sample pair from the Rochette rock, we have collected a second sample pair, this time from a region of the crater floor called Seitah at the Brac rock. As we now gear up

Binghamton NY (SPX) Dec 17, 2021
Rivers and streams once flowed across the surface of Mars, etching channels still evident on the planet's surface today. Water in lakes once lapped ancient shores. All told, the geological evidence adds up to an ocean's worth of water, noted Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies Professor David Jenkins. But today, Mars' red sands appear bone-dry. Where did all that water go?

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 17, 2021
Scientists with NASA's Perseverance Mars rover mission have discovered that the bedrock their six-wheeled explorer has been driving on since landing in February likely formed from red-hot magma. The discovery has implications for understanding and accurately dating critical events in the history of Jezero Crater - as well as the rest of the planet. The team has also concluded that rocks in

Bay St. Louis MS (SPX) Dec 17, 2021
NASA conducted a successful full-duration test Dec. 15 to begin a new series of testing for state-of-the-art RS-25 engines to help power the agency's Space Launch System (SLS), America's new deep-space rocket, on future missions to the Moon and Mars. The first hot fire of the new series was conducted for a full-duration 500 seconds on the Fred Haise Test Stand (formerly A-1 Test Stand) at

New Orleans LA (SPX) Dec 17, 2021
NASA has completed assembly of the upper, or forward, part of the core stage for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will send the Artemis II crew on their lunar mission. Boeing, the lead core stage contractor, completed joining the forward part of the rocket, and then lifted it out of the assembly structure at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. To construct this part o