Space and astronomy news
One of the largest craters in the Solar System is on our Moon. It’s called the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin and it’s 2,500 km (1,600 mi) in diameter and 13 km (8.1 mi) deep. A new study says that the basin may contain an enormous chunk of metal that’s larger than Hawaii’s Big Island.
The InSight lander recently detected the strongest seismic signal yet, thanks to its Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument.
Engineers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) are busy working with a replica InSight Lander to see if they can understand what’s blocking the lander’s mole. The mole is the short name for the lander’s Heat Probe, which is hammering its way into the Martian surface. The Heat Probe …
Continue reading “Scientists are Trying to Figure Out Why InSight’s “Mole” Can’t Dig Any Deeper”
A new study by a team from the Carl Sagan institutes shows how life could survive the harsh radiation on neighboring exoplanets like Proxima b.
Imagine a time in the Solar System’s past, when the asteroids were not solid rock, but blobs of molten iron. It sounds strange, but that may have been the case. And in the right conditions, some of those asteroids would have sprouted volcanoes. One of those asteroids, Psyche, is the destination for a NASA mission.
Discovering new things in space is a regular occurrence. Astronomers keep finding more distant objects in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Worlds like ‘The Goblin,’ ‘FarOut,’ and ‘FarFarOut‘ are stretching the limits of what our Solar System actually is. But finding new things in the inner Solar System is rare.
NASA’s InSight lander is busy deploying its Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) into the Martian soil and has encountered some resistance. The German Aerospace Center (DLR), who designed and built the HP3 as part of the InSight mission, has announced that the instrument has hit not one, but two rocks in the sub-surface. …
Continue reading “InSight’s Rock-hammer is About Half a Meter Down and has Already Run into Rocks.”
Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission is about to get down to business. After arriving at asteroid Ryugu at the end of June 2018, and dispatching its tiny rovers to the surface, the spacecraft is about to approach the surface of the asteroid and get some samples.
NASA’s InSight lander has finally placed its heat probe on the surface of Mars. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) was deployed on February 12th, about one meter away from SEIS, the landers seismometer. Soon it’ll start hammering its way into the Martian soil.
Even in retirement, the Kepler space telescope is still allowing for discoveries, which include it’s “last light” images and recordings.