Hong Kong (AFP) June 27, 2024
A historic lunar mission has demonstrated China's growing scientific prowess, but the feat has set off a torrent of misinformation targeting the United States that researchers say reflects their bitter competition in space. China is celebrating the return of the Chang'e 6 probe to Earth on Tuesday bearing rock-and-soil samples from the little-known far side of the Moon, following a 53-day mi

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 27, 2024
A detailed analysis of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, collected by NASA's University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission, has unveiled significant discoveries. The OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team found that Bennu contains the primary components that formed our solar system. The dust from Bennu is rich in carbon, nitrogen, and organic compounds, essential for life. The sam

Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Jun 27, 2024
Researchers continue to expand the case for the Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis. The idea proposes that a fragmented comet smashed into the Earth's atmosphere 12,800 years ago, causing a widespread climatic shift that, among other things, led to the abrupt reversal of the Earth's warming trend and into an anomalous near-glacial period called the Younger Dryas. Now, UC Santa Barbara emeritu

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 27, 2024
Scientists have eagerly anticipated the analysis of the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) pristine asteroid Bennu sample collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security - Regolith Explorer) mission since it arrived on Earth last fall. Researchers hoped this material would reveal secrets of the solar system's past and the prebiotic chemistry that could

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 27, 2024
After six months of diligent effort, the SHERLOC instrument on NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is operational again, enabling the rover to continue its search for ancient microbial life. The SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument recently analyzed a rock target with its spectrometer and camera for the first time since enco

Charlottesville VA (SPX) Jun 27, 2024
What if the future of space travel were to look less like Space-X's rocket-based Starship and more like NASA's "Hyper-X," the hypersonic jet plane that, 20 years ago this year, flew faster than any other aircraft before or since? In 2004, NASA's final X-43A unmanned prototype tests were a milestone in the latest era of jet development - the leap from ramjets to faster, more efficient scram

Washington (AFP) June 26, 2024
NASA on Tuesday said it had picked SpaceX to build a vessel to carry the International Space Station back through Earth's atmosphere and on to a final resting place in the Pacific Ocean after it is retired in 2030. Elon Musk's company has been awarded a contract with a potential value of $843 million to develop and deliver the spaceship, dubbed the US Deorbit Vehicle. "Selecting a US Deo

Less than a month after it was launched, ESA’s EarthCARE satellite has returned the first image from one of its instruments – an image that, for the first time from space, unveils the internal structure and dynamics of clouds.

This remarkable first image, captured by the satellite’s cloud profiling radar, offers a mere glimpse of the instrument's full potential once it is fully calibrated.

Image: Proba-2’s glimpse of home