After nearly five years in space, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

Athabasca, Canada (SPX) May 11, 2021
Recent developments at the forefront of astronomy allow us to observe that planets orbiting other stars have weather. Indeed, we have known that other planets in our own solar system have weather, in many cases more extreme than our own. Our lives are affected by short-term atmospheric variations of weather on Earth, and we fear that longer-term climate change will also have a large impact

Houston TX (SPX) May 11, 2021
The prospects for life on a given planet depend not only on where it forms but also how, according to Rice University scientists. Planets like Earth that orbit within a solar system's Goldilocks zone, with conditions supporting liquid water and a rich atmosphere, are more likely to harbor life. As it turns out, how that planet came together also determines whether it captured and retained

Leiden Netherlands (SPX) May 11, 2021
An international team of researchers led by Alice Booth (Leiden University, the Netherlands) have discovered methanol in the warm part of a planet-forming disk. The methanol cannot have been produced there and must have originated in the cold gas clouds from which the star and the disk formed. Thus, the methanol is inherited. If that is common, it could give the formation of life elsewhere

Cleveland OH (SPX) May 11, 2021
Before NASA's next lunar rover paves the way for long-term human exploration of the Moon, it must first pass a series of rigorous mobility tests along the banks of Lake Erie. The Simulated Lunar Operations Laboratory, or SLOPE Lab, at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is home to multiple sandboxes that mimic the lunar and Martian terrain to evaluate the traction performance and lim

Washington DC (SPX) May 11, 2021
After nearly five years in space, NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. On Monday, May 10, at 4:23 p.m. EDT the spacecraft fired its main engines full throttle for seven minutes - its most significant maneuver si

Ithaca NY (SPX) May 11, 2021
Voyager 1 - one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space - still works and zooms toward infinity. The craft has long since zipped past the edge of the solar system through the heliopause - the solar system's border with interstellar space - into the interstellar medium. Now, its instruments have detected the constant drone of

Canberra, Australia (SPX) May 11, 2021
Billionaire Jeff Bezos's space launch company Blue Origin has announced it will sell its first flights into microgravity to the highest bidder. Blue Origin and its two greatest competitors in the "space tourism" field, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, claim to be advancing humanity through the "democratisation" of space. But these joyrides aren't opening up access to space for all. At fac

Washington DC (SPX) May 11, 2021
NASA and Axiom Space have signed an order for the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station to take place no earlier than January 2022. "We are excited to see more people have access to spaceflight through this first private astronaut mission to the space station," said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA Headquarters

Orlando FL (SPX) May 11, 2021
University of Central Florida researchers are building on their technology that could pave the way for hypersonic flight, such as travel from New York to Los Angeles in under 30 minutes. In their latest research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered a way to stabilize the detonation needed for hypersonic propulsion by creating