First ever Canadian lunar rover will hunt for water ice on the moon
Sunday, 05 March 2023 04:50
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The first ever Canadian rover to set wheels on the moon is currently under construction for a mission set to launch as early as 2026. The rover will explore the south polar region of the moon in a search for water ice in the lunar soil.
Rovers are simply "mobile robotic vehicles that allow us to explore the surfaces of other planets," explains Chris Herd, a professor in the Department of E Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumb trick inspires robotic exploration of caves on Mars and beyond
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House hunting on Mars could soon become a thing, and researchers at the University of Arizona are already in the business of scouting real estate that future astronauts could use as habitats. Researchers in the UArizona College of Engineering have developed technology that would allow a flock of robots to explore subsurface environments on other worlds.
"Lava tubes and caves would make per What we learned from the asteroid-smashing DART mission
Sunday, 05 March 2023 04:50 Write a comment
On Sept. 26, 2022, at precisely 6:14 p.m. ET, a box-shaped spacecraft no bigger than a loveseat smashed directly into an asteroid wider than a football field. The planned impact knocked the space rock off its orbit, showing for the first time that an asteroid can potentially be deflected away from Earth.
The spacecraft was the key part of DART, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, whic Ozone-measuring Instrument on NOAA-21 Satellite Captures its First Images
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On February 9, 2023, an ozone-measuring instrument on the recently launched NOAA-21 satellite opened its doors and, over the course of a week, gathered data for its first global image. The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) consists of three sensors that monitor Earth's ozone layer and track its recovery.
The map above, created using OMPS data, shows total ozone concentrations in the Humanity's quest to discover the origins of life in the universe
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"We are living in an extraordinary moment in history," says Didier Queloz, who directs ETH Zurich's Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life and the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at Cambridge. While still a doctoral student Queloz was the first to discover an exoplanet - a planet orbiting a solar-type star outside of Earth's solar system. A discovery for which he would later receive The outburst of a neutron star reveals the nature of phenomena only observed in black holes
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X-ray binaries are systems formed by a compact object, a neutron star or a black hole, and a star of a similar size to the Sun. The compact object swallows matter from the companion star through a disk that emits large amounts of light, especially in X-rays. This process in which the compact object attracts matter, known as accretion, usually occurs in violent eruptions during which the system b Dark matter halos: the key to understanding galaxies
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We have come a long way in understanding the universe around us, thanks to current technological advances, such as the construction of huge telescopes or satellites with increasingly powerful instruments. However, it is disturbing that most of the universe components (matter and energy) are still unknown to us. In the "recipe" to "build" a universe like ours, we have to put two ingredients that Major collaboration reveals new insights on binary star systems
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Scientists have long been intrigued by X-ray binary star systems, where two stars orbit around each other with one of the two stars being either a black hole or a neutron star. Both black holes and neutron stars are created in supernova explosions and are very dense - giving them a massive gravitational pull. This makes them capable of capturing the outer layers of the normal star that orbits ar NASA and Roscosmos planning to add mission to seat barter agreement
Sunday, 05 March 2023 00:07 Write a comment
NASA is working with the Russian government to update an agreement to allow Russian cosmonauts to fly on the next two SpaceX crew rotation missions to the International Space Station.
New results from NASA's DART planetary defense mission confirm we could deflect deadly asteroids
Saturday, 04 March 2023 14:20 Write a comment
What would we do if we spotted a hazardous asteroid on a collision course with Earth? Could we deflect it safely to prevent the impact?
Last year, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission tried to find out whether a "kinetic impactor" could do the job: smashing a 600kg spacecraft the size of a fridge into an asteroid the size of an Aussie Rules football field.
Early results from this first real-world test of our potential planetary defense systems looked promising. However, it's only now that the first scientific results are being published: five papers in Nature have recreated the impact, and analyzed how it changed the asteroid's momentum and orbit, while twostudies investigate the debris knocked off by the impact.
The conclusion: "kinetic impactor technology is a viable technique to potentially defend Earth if necessary".
DoD releases updated guidance on ‘responsible behaviors in space’
Friday, 03 March 2023 19:07 Write a comment
The Defense Department on March 3 released updated guidelines for safe and responsible space operations.
Humans are still hunting for aliens: Here's how astronomers are looking for life beyond Earth
Friday, 03 March 2023 16:53 Write a comment
We have long been fascinated with the idea of alien life. The earliest written record presenting the idea of "aliens" is seen in the satiric work of Assyrian writer Lucian of Samosata dated to 200 AD.
In one novel, Lucian writes of a journey to the Moon and the bizarre life he imagines living there—everything from three-headed vultures to fleas the size of elephants.
Now, 2,000 years later, we still write stories of epic adventures beyond Earth to meet otherworldly beings (Hitchhiker's Guide, anyone?). Stories like these entertain and inspire, and we are forever trying to find out if science fiction will become science fact.
Not all alien life is the same
When looking for life beyond Earth, we are faced with two possibilities. We might find basic microbial life hiding somewhere in our Solar System; or we will identify signals from intelligent life somewhere far away.
Unlike in Star Wars, we're not talking far, far away in another galaxy, but rather around other nearby stars. It is this second possibility which really excites me, and should excite you too.
Scientists discover answer to the mystery of cloudy filters on satellites
Friday, 03 March 2023 15:33
Europe's Vega-C rocket failure traced to defective engine part: ESA
Friday, 03 March 2023 14:41 Write a comment
The failed launch of a Vega-C European rocket in French Guiana last December was due to the deterioration of a key engine component that resulted in a rapid loss of boosting power, European Space Agency officials said Friday.
The launching from the Kourou space port would have been the first commercial launch for the Vega-C and presented a new option for European space payloads after numerous delays to the next-generation Ariane 6 rocket and cancelled Russian cooperation over the Ukraine war.
But shortly after lift-off on December 21 with a payload of two observation satellites, the rocket deviated from its programmed trajectory and communications were lost, forcing officials to destroy it over the Atlantic Ocean.
An ESA investigative panel found that pressure in the Zefiro 40 motor, made by Italy's Avio, had started falling during the second stage of lift-off, the commission's co-president Pierre-Yves Tissier told journalists.
At three minutes 27 seconds after the launch, "the rocket's acceleration had fallen almost to zero," he said.
Investigators determined that a nozzle neck supposed to ensure constant combustion pressure in the motor had failed to resist the enormous pressure and temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees Celsius (5,432 degrees Fahrenheit).
Viasat to enter direct-to-device market with Ligado Networks
Friday, 03 March 2023 13:39 Write a comment
Viasat said March 2 it is partnering with Ligado Networks to break into the emerging market for providing satellite services directly to consumer smartphones and other devices.