Copernical Team
Meteorite impact provides a glimpse beneath Mars' surface
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On 24 December 2021, NASA's InSight lander felt the ground shake. Its SEIS seismometer registered a marsquake of magnitude 4. Independently, a 150-metre diameter crater was photographed from orbit by the cameras of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The camera team was able to determine that it was formed on 24 December, and realised that this was the same day as the reported quake. When the two t NASA's Lunar Flashlight ready to search for the lunar ice
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Set for a November launch, the small satellite mission will use lasers to search for water ice inside the darkest craters at the Moon's South Pole. The Moon's poles offer a tantalizing opportunity for human explorers: There may be reservoirs of water ice there that could be purified as drinking water, converted into breathable oxygen, and used as fuel by astronauts. These reservoirs are inside p Starshade competition challenges students to block starlight for observing exoplanets
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AIP is organizing a competition for undergraduate students in the physical sciences to design a spaceborne starshade. The device will orbit Earth, blocking the light from a star and allowing ground-based telescopes to observe extra-solar planets.
Since the light coming from a star is likely billions of times brighter than the reflected light from an Earth-like exoplanet, obstructing the li China launches experimental satellite into space
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China launched a Long March 2D carrier rocket on Saturday morning to transport an experimental satellite into space, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.
The State-owned space conglomerate said in a press release that the rocket blasted off at 9:01 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China and soon sent the Shiyan 20C, or Experiment 20C, into its SpaceX California launch sends 53 more Starlink satellites into orbit
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SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 53 more Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit on Thursday.
The flight lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Los Angeles and headed southeast over the Pacific Ocean in its first minutes.
It was the 49th SpaceX mission of the year and roughly 75% of the flights launched Starlink satellites. Before the latest launch, S Beyond Gravity wins major contract from ULA for Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation launches
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In mid-March this year, Beyond Gravity (formerly RUAG Space) was awarded a contract to develop and deliver the dispenser system for Amazon's planned satellite constellation. Project Kuiper aims to provide affordable, high-speed broadband connections around the world.
Now, United Launch Alliance (ULA) has also awarded Beyond Gravity the contract to supply 38 payload fairings for its Vulcan Photo from NASA satellite shows the sun was 'smiling' this week
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The sun was in a good mood this week, or at least that's what it looked like in a photo published by NASA.
A photo of the sun taken from a NASA satellite and time-stamped Thursday morning appears to show a smile on the surface of our nearest star.
It's not the first time this week the cheerful pattern appeared.
"Today, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the sun 'smiling,'" NASA said in a Wednesday tweet. "Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space."
According to SpaceWeather.com, the sun is spewing a triple stream of solar wind toward Earth. This could produce auroras here on Earth as early as Saturday, the website said.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory is a satellite that's in orbit around the Earth, with sensors pointed at the sun to take a variety of measurements of the sun and solar activity.
One of the mission's goals is to see how the sun's magnetic field is generated and structured, and how it impacts life on Earth and our telecommunications systems.
Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon
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Building up a lunar settlement has been the ultimate aim of lunar exploitation since humanity's first step on the moon. Yet, limited fuel and oxygen supplies restrict human survival on the moon.
Combining photovoltaic and electrocatalysis, the artificial production of hydrocarbon fuels along with oxygen using carbon dioxide and water as the feedstocks has been demonstrably feasible on the Earth and is recognized as a potential strategy to be imitated in extraterrestrial sites. With the rapid progress of moon exploration, researchers have discovered that the moon's surface has considerable carbon dioxide and water reserves, which further confirms the feasibility of the idea.
Against this background, the joint research team of the University of Science and Technology of China, Nanjing University and China Academy of Space Technology found that the lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e 5 mission can be used as a catalyst to drive the electrocatalytic CO2 conversion for fuel and oxygen production.
NASA and ESA agree on next steps to return Mars samples to Earth
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The next step in the unprecedented campaign to return scientifically selected samples from Mars was made on Oct. 19 with a formal agreement between NASA and its partner ESA (European Space Agency). The two agencies will proceed with the creation of a sample tube depot on Mars. The sample depot, or cache, will be at "Three Forks," an area located near the base of an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater.
This cache will contain samples from carefully selected rocks on the surface of Mars—samples that can help tell the story of Jezero Crater's history and how Mars evolved, and could perhaps even contain signs of ancient life.
NASA continues Psyche asteroid mission
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NASA announced Friday the agency decided its Psyche mission will go forward, targeting a launch period opening on Oct. 10, 2023.
Earlier this year, Psyche missed its planned 2022 launch period as a result of mission development problems, leading to an internal review of whether the mission would be able to overcome these issues to successfully launch in 2023.
This continuation/termination review was informed by a project-proposed mission replan and a separate independent review, commissioned in June by NASA and the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, that investigated causes for the delay.
"I appreciate the hard work of the independent review board and the JPL-led team toward mission success," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The lessons learned from Psyche will be implemented across our entire mission portfolio. I am excited about the science insights Psyche will provide during its lifetime and its promise to contribute to our understanding of our own planet's core.
