Space and astronomy news
Scientists have long suspected that Mars was once warm and wet in its ancient past. The Mars Ocean Hypothesis says that the planet was home to a large ocean around 4 billion years ago. The ocean filled the Vastitas Borealis basin in the planet’s northern hemisphere. The basin is 4–5 km (2.5–3 miles) below Mars’ mean elevation.
A new topographic map of Mars reinforces the hypothesis and adds more detail.
Continue reading “Scientists Piece Together the Shoreline of an Ancient Ocean on Mars”
Fifty years ago, NASA and the Soviet space program conducted the first sample-return missions from the Moon. This included lunar rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo astronauts and those obtained by robotic missions that were part of the Soviet Luna Program. The analysis of these rocks revealed a great deal about the Moon’s composition, formation, and geological history. In particular, scientists concluded that the rocks were formed from volcanic eruptions more than three billion years ago.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence in lunar exploration as NASA and other space agencies have sent robotic missions to the Moon (in preparation for crewed missions). For instance, China has sent multiple orbiters, landers, and rovers to the Moon as part of the Chang’e program, including sample-return missions. A new study led by planetary scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) analyzed samples obtained by the Chang’e-5 rover dated to two billion years ago. Their research could provide valuable insight into how young volcanism shaped the lunar surface.
Continue reading “The Moon had Volcanoes More Recently Than Previously Believed”
What’s the current state of James Webb? What were the main technical difficulties and what does the future look like? What comes after JWST and LUVOIR? Will it be possible to ever build quantum telescopes? We’ve got the answers.!
Continue reading “25 More Years for Webb, LUVOIR and Quantum Telescopes”
In a recent study published in Microbiome, a team of researchers led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted a five-year first-of-its-kind study investigating the microbiome (environmental profile) of the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose of the study was to address “the introduction and proliferation of potentially harmful microorganisms into the microbial communities of piloted spaceflight and how this could affect human health”, according to the paper.
Continue reading “The International Space Station Gets a Clean Bill of Health. Despite a Few Opportunistic Microbes, the Station is “Safe” for Astronauts”
Getting to space has almost always been a multi-stage process. Those stages typically took the form of different stages of chemical rockets, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Plenty of alternative options have been proposed, and one that NASA has been working on for almost a decade is getting closer to commercialization. The project, known as the Towed-Glider Air Launch System (TGALS), uses three very different stages – a business jet, and glider, and two separate rockets – sort of. But its main advantage means that any airport large enough to host a business jet could also become a spaceport.
Continue reading “NASA’s new Glider Could Turn any Airport Into a Spaceport”
Distances to different orbits can be hard to understand. For example, the ISS sits around 400 kilometers from Earth, whereas some satellites, such as Starlink, orbit at about 550 km. Often that is intentional, as objects in those orbits will eventually degrade their orbit and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. However, many systems orbit a few orders of magnitude higher – such as the Galileo satellites that make up the backbone of the European Union’s satellite navigation network. At an orbit of around 23000 km, it has some advantages over lower-hanging satellites but also plenty of disadvantages too. Now, the EU was to eliminate some of those disadvantages by releasing a whole new set of lower-orbiting satnav satellites.
Continue reading “Navigation Satellites fly at 23,000 km Altitude. Europe Wants to Build a Constellation That Flies Much, Much Lower”
Astronomical images never cease to delight, and the European Southern Observatory’s image of the Vela nebula is no exception.
Continue reading “ESO Finds the Ghostly Image of a Dying Star”
Gravity calculations can provide plenty of insight into a variety of phenomena. Everything from Einstein rings to the rocket equation is at least partially dependent on gravity. Now an undergraduate student and professor team from MIT think they have a new use for gravity calculations – understanding the interior density of asteroids.
Continue reading “When an Asteroid Gets Close to Earth, we get a Rare Opportunity to Learn What it’s Made of”
Why 2022 may be a banner year for the November Taurid meteors.
One of the most notorious producers of fireball meteors could prove to be active this coming week. We’re talking about the Taurid Fireballs, produced by the complex Southern and Northern Taurid meteor stream. Sandwiched between the better known October Orionids and the November Leonids, the Taurids (sometimes referred to as the ‘Halloween Fireballs’) are a complex meteor shower worthy of scrutiny in early November.
Continue reading “Possible Taurid Meteor Outburst For 2022?”
SpaceX launched its gigantic Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in more than three years, sending satellites for the military to orbit. The rocket took off amid heavy fog at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, November 1, and a few minutes later two booster segments returned to Earth, sticking the side-by-side landings back at Cape Canaveral.
Continue reading “Falcon Heavy Launches for the First Time in Over Three Years, Carrying Military Satellites to Orbit”