Washington DC (UPI) Mar 22, 2021
The total number of confirmed planets in the universe ticked past 5,000 this week with the addition of 65 exoplanets, NASA says. The space agency said the confirmed planets are just a small fraction of the billions of planets the Milky Way likely holds. That number only increases when considering galaxies outside our own. The newly added exoplanets - worlds that exist outside ou

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Mar 23, 2022
The study, in which the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Universidad Estatal Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho (Julio de Mesquita Filho Paulista State University) (UNESP) of Brazil are participating, analyses the surface and dynamics of Apophis, an asteroid that will pass close to Earth in 2029. The Apophis asteroid was discovered in 2004 and has been monitored since then due

Nagoya, Japan (SPX) Mar 23, 2022
Asteroids hold many clues about the formation and evolution of planets and their satellites. Understanding their history can, therefore, reveal much about our solar system. While observations made from a distance using electromagnetic waves and telescopes are useful, analyzing samples retrieved from asteroids can yield much more detail about their characteristics and how they may have formed. An

Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 23, 2022
Curiosity is investigating the different surface expressions of the Greenheugh pediment, and the weekend drive put the rover right next to some "gator-back terrain" - some evenly spaced ridges with a blocky expression, as seen in the above Navcam image. Today's one sol plan is focused on a close encounter with one of these ridges through contact science and remote sensing. The plans starts

Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 23, 2022
Perseverance is adding a pop of color to Mars' regular repertoire: purple. The color palette of Mars' surface is one of muted hues. Burnt orange tones reflect the iron-bearing minerals that have rusted under an oxidizing atmosphere while soft greys characterize the un-rusted parent rock. However, over the past year we have seen prominent patches of purple peppered atop the rocks. The patch

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 22, 2021
NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 22nd flight over the weekend, the space agency announced. "The trip lasted 101.4 seconds and Ingenuity got up to 33 feet in the air," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a tweet Monday. "The team is planning another flight perhaps as early as later this week." During its first 21 flights, Ingenuity flew a total of 15,247 feet an

Sydney (AFP) March 22, 2022
Australia's government on Tuesday launched "Space Command", a new defence agency with echoes of the United States' Space Force that has been tasked with securing the country's place in an "already contested" cosmos. Defence Minister Peter Dutton said the new defence arm would be modest to start with, though he gave no detailed staffing or budget figures. In a speech to the Australian Air

Washington (AFP) March 20, 2022
Russia's claim it used a hypersonic missile in Ukraine was a way to reclaim war momentum, but the next-generation weaponry has not proved to be a "game changer," the Pentagon's chief said Sunday. Moscow has said it has fired two hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, and while US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would not "confirm or dispute" whether Russia used such weapons, he warned that President

Luxembourg (SPX) Mar 23, 2022
SES, the leader in global content connectivity solutions, announced an agreement with Verizon Communications to expand the US-based mobile carrier's access to a portion of the C-band (3700-3800 MHz) in important regions across the US earlier than the relocation deadlines set out in the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) C-Band Report and Order. SES has already completed its Phas

Seattle WA (SPX) Mar 23, 2022
Spaceflight Inc., the leading global launch services provider, has announced an extended multi-launch agreement (MLA) with long-time customer, Internet of Things (IoT) constellation developer, Astrocast. This agreement will add two missions to accommodate Astrocast's fast-growing IoT constellation which helps track assets in some of the world's most remote regions. In February of 2020, Ast