Copernical Team
Bulgaria signs Artemis Accords at NASA Headquarters; Joins 31 Nations
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson participated in a signing ceremony Thursday with Bulgaria's Milena Stoycheva, minister of innovation and growth, as her country became the 32nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords. The Artemis Accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations, including those participating in NASA's Artemis program. Also
Astronaut who led humanity's first mission around the Moon dead at 95
Frank Borman, the NASA astronaut who led the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon, has died at the age of 95, the US space agency said Thursday. He passed away on November 7 in Billings, Montana. "Today we remember one of NASA's best," said the agency's administrator Bill Nelson, in a statement. "His lifelong love for aviation and exploration was only
Glow in the visible range detected for the first time in the Martian night
An international team led by scientists from the University of Liege has observed, for the first time in the visible range, a glow on the night side of the planet Mars. These new observations provide a better understanding of the dynamics of the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet and its variations throughout the year. A scientific team led by researchers from the Laboratory for Planetary
University of Bern's LIMS Set to Uncover Moon's Mysteries in 2027
In a landmark advancement for lunar science, the University of Bern, a beacon in space research since the Apollo era, is poised to make history once more with its latest instrument, LIMS (Laser Ablation Ionization Mass Spectrometer), set to land on the Moon by 2027. This venture is a part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which integrates the prowess of American comp
Lunar Mysteries Unraveled: Topographic Connection to Swirls Discovered
In a groundbreaking study that challenges long-standing assumptions in lunar science, researchers have discovered a significant correlation between lunar swirls and the topography of the Moon's surface. This revelation, spearheaded by Senior Scientist John Weirich and his team at the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), may hold the key to deciphering the enigmatic history of lunar swirls. L
Hayabusa2 Unveils New Clues on Solar System's Beginnings from Asteroid Samples
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)'s ambitious Hayabusa2 mission has once again brought to Earth not just asteroid samples but potential keys to unlock mysteries of our solar system's infancy. The mission, which daringly snagged samples from the asteroid Ryugu, has given scientists a pristine peek into the volatile and organic-rich materials that were present when the solar system was
HK, Macao add thrust to China's space exploration
Many people gazing at the moon shining brightly in the night sky wonder what secrets the Earth's satellite holds. However, few of them have the chance to access lunar soil and study it to unlock such mysteries, unlike Qian Yuqi. At the start of this year, Qian, a postdoctoral fellow from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, or HKU, applied to access lunar
Image: NASA sounding rocket launches into Alaskan aurora
A sounding rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, Nov. 8, 2023, carrying NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's DISSIPATION mission. The rocket launched into aurora and successfully captured data to understand how auroras heat the atmosphere and cause high-altitude winds.
The teams continue to support a second sounding rocket launch for BEAM-PIE, a mission for Los Alamos National Laboratory that will use an electron beam to create radio waves, measuring how atmospheric conditions modulate them. The data is key to interpreting measurements from many other missions.
NASA's Sounding Rockets Program, funded by NASA's Heliophysics Division, is managed at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, under NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Provided by NASA
Open doors for the ESA-ESAC Open Day
On Saturday 21st October, the European Space Agency opened the doors of the European Space Astronomy Centre in Villanueva de la Cañada (near Madrid), ESAC, to host the ESA Open Day. With a full program of talks and activities, the event featured tours, hands-on laboratories for children and get-togethers with science communicators, ESA astronaut and experts. More than 1800 people, among adults and children, had the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the activities and programs in which ESA is involved every day.
Preparing for European commercial presence in low Earth orbit
At ESA’s Space Summit in Seville, Spain, ESA, Airbus and Voyager Space signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the Starlab space station.