Space and astronomy news
The European Space Agency’s first spacecraft mission to the Moon, SMART-1, is being prepared for launch at the end of August. The spacecraft was delivered in mid-July to the ESA’s space centre in Kourou, French Guiana, and is expected to launch on August 29. The spacecraft will take 16 months to reach the Moon, following …
Image credit: NASA A team of astronomers from Ohio State University believe that we should be seeking life on a wider range of planets than previously speculated. They calculated that NASA’s upcoming Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) should be able to detect habitable planets near stars which are much larger than the Sun. This opens up …
Continue reading “Searching For Life on Non-Earthlike Planets”
Like many of you, I’m a total advocate for human space exploration. Sure, robots are great, with their indestructibility and unquestioning loyalty, but there are times when you really need to get some human hands and eyes on location to provide some solid data and deal with the unexpected. But humans are soft, fragile, and …
Continue reading “Book Review: Spacefaring: The Human Dimension”
Image credit: NASA With only a few months to go before NASA launches its next two rovers to Mars, mission planners need to pin down exactly where they want the robot explorers to touch down. The twin Mars Exploration Rovers are scheduled for launch in May and June of 2003, and they currently have four …
Continue reading “Where Should the Next Martian Rovers Land?”
Image credit: ESA The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft was shipped to the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in preparation for its launch early next year. The spacecraft contains 20 different scientific instruments designed to help study comets. It will lift off January 13, and then spend nine years in space; hurtling past two asteroids, …
Continue reading “Comet Chasing Spacecraft Delivered to Spaceport”
Image credit: NASA Flight controllers for the Mars Odyssey completed a milestone on Tuesday when they ordered the spacecraft to extend the boom 6.2 metre boom that holds its gamma ray spectrometer sensor head instrument. Even though it hadn’t been deployed yet, the instrument was still able to collect data from Mars’ surface, but this …
Image credit: NASA Now in its final orbit, Mars Odyssey is getting to work searching for water on the surface of the planet. The most recent set of images returned are of a network of channels taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS). The Nirgal Vallis is a channel 500 km long and 6 …
It’s only the first few photographs from Mars Odyssey, but scientists are already excited about what the spacecraft has turned up on the surface of Mars. Odyssey, which began mapping the planet last week, has detected significant amounts of hydrogen near the planet’s south pole. Scientists believe this hydrogen is evidence of water ice – …
Scientists from the University of Arizona believe that water may have erupted onto the surface of Mars as recently as 10 million years ago. As much as 600 cubic kilometres of water (four times the water in Lake Erie) may have poured out of fissures in the Cerberus Plains just north of the Martian equator. …
After months of orbital manoeuvres, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft is ready to get to work searching for water on the surface of Mars. NASA flight controllers instructed the spacecraft to turn its scientific equipment towards the Red Planet on Monday. Operators expect it will take a few days to fully calibrate the equipment, and hope …