Copernical Team
Curiosity rover finds patches of rock record erased, revealing clues
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Today, Mars is a planet of extremes - it's bitterly cold, has high radiation, and is bone-dry. But billions of years ago, Mars was home to lake systems that could have sustained microbial life. As the planet's climate changed, one such lake - in Mars' Gale Crater - slowly dried out. Scientists have new evidence that super salty water, or brines, seeped deep through the cracks, between grains of Flight 9 was a nail-biter, but Ingenuity came through with flying colors
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It has been a week of heightened apprehension on the Mars Helicopter team as we prepared a major flight challenge for Ingenuity. We uplinked instructions for the flight, which occurred Monday, July 5 at 2:03 am PT, and waited nervously for results to arrive from Mars later that morning. The mood in the ground control room was jubilant when we learned that Ingenuity was alive and well after compl At 59, Kennedy Diversifies, Flourishes as Multi-User Spaceport
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In 1962 when America was going to the Moon, NASA established Kennedy Space Center in Florida as its Launch Operations Center. This month, the modernized multi-user spaceport marks its 59th anniversary while working to send Americans back to the Moon, helping grow the commercial space industry, and performing research that benefits humanity.
The launch of NASA's Artemis I mission - slated t Reaction Engines secures new UK Government funding for Space Access Program
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The 3.9 million pound grant from the UK Space Agency will support the development of Reaction Engines' ground-breaking SABRE technology, enabling low-carbon air-breathing space access propulsion technology to be applied more widely in the space sector and beyond.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway and Transport Minister Rachel Maclean visited Reaction Engines at its site in Culham, Oxfordshi British billionaire Richard Branson plans to soar into space Sunday
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British billionaire Richard Branson on Sunday plans to become the first owner of a private space company to fly into space.
The flight of Branson's Virgin Galactic VSS Unity spaceship is scheduled to lift off sometime after 9 a.m. EDT from New Mexico's private Spaceport America, about 170 miles south of Albuquerque.
The company's gleaming white plane, VMS Eve, will carry the spac 17 years after founding Virgin Galactic, Branson bound for space
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He's always dreamed of it, and in 2004 founded his own company to make it happen.
On Sunday, billionaire Richard Branson will take off from a base in New Mexico aboard a Virgin Galactic vessel bound for the edge of space.
The Briton is hoping to finally get the nascent space tourism industry off the ground - but also go one up on Jeff Bezos by winning the race to be the first person to Explainer: How Richard Branson will ride own rocket to space
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Virgin Galactic will become the first rocket company to launch the boss when Richard Branson straps into one of his sleek, shiny space planes this weekend.
The mystery of what causes Jupiter’s X-ray auroras is solved
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The 40-year-old mystery of what causes Jupiter’s X-ray auroras has been solved. For the first time, astronomers have seen the entire mechanism at work – and it could be a process occurring in many other parts of the Universe too.
Researchers have taught a drone to recognize and hunt down meteorites autonomously
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Planetary scientists estimate that each year, about 500 meteorites survive the fiery trip through Earth's atmosphere and fall to our planet's surface. Most are quite small, and less than 2% of them are ever recovered. While the majority of rocks from space may not be recoverable due to ending up in oceans or remote, inaccessible areas, other meteorite falls are just not witnessed or known about.
But new technology has upped the number known falls in recent years. Doppler radar has detected meteorite falls, as well as all-sky camera networks specifically on the lookout for meteors.
Rare meteorite could hold secrets to life on Earth
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Scientists are set to uncover the secrets of a rare meteorite and possibly the origins of oceans and life on Earth, thanks to Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) funding.
Research carried out on the meteorite, which fell in the UK earlier this year, suggests that the space rock dates back to the beginning of the Solar System, 4.5 billion years ago.
The meteorite has now been officially classified, thanks in part to the STFC-funded studies on the sample.
The Winchcombe meteorite, aptly named after the Gloucestershire town where it landed, is an extremely rare type called a carbonaceous chondrite. It is a stony meteorite, rich in water and organic matter, which has retained its chemistry from the formation of the solar system. Initial analyses showing Winchcombe to be a member of the CM ("Mighei-like") group of carbonaceous chondrites have now been formally approved by the Meteoritical Society.
