Beijing (XNA) Sep 18, 2022
Crew members on the Shenzhou XIV mission stepped out of their spacecraft for the second spacewalk on Saturday afternoon, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The agency said in a brief news release that Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe opened an extravehicular activity hatch on the Tiangong space station at 1:35 pm and then floated out of the station. He was followed by mission commander Se

Charlottesville VA (SPX) Sep 18, 2022
In 1919 astronomers Arthur Eddington and Andrew Crommelin captured photographic images of a total solar eclipse. The Sun was in the constellation Taurus at the time, and a handful of its stars could be seen in the photographs. But the stars weren't quite in their expected place. The tremendous gravity of the Sun had deflected the light of these stars, making them appear slightly out of place. It

Washington DC (SPX) Sep 18, 2022
Stargazers can expect excellent views of Jupiter the entire night of Monday, Sept. 26 when the giant planet reaches opposition. From the viewpoint of Earth's surface, opposition happens when an astronomical object rises in the east as the Sun sets in the west, placing the object and the Sun on opposite sides of Earth. Jupiter's opposition occurs every 13 months, making the planet appear la

Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 18, 2022
The SHERLOC and PIXL proximity science instruments on Perseverance have enabled more detailed observations of Martian chemistry and minerology than ever before. PIXL can isolate features as small as a grain of sand. To achieve this, these instruments on the end of the robotic arm must be placed at a precise distance from the feature of interest - very close, but not too close. PIXL even has a "h

Washington DC (UPI) Sep 17, 2021
Scientists believe some of the recently-collected rock samples taken by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover likely contain organic matter. The four most recent samples are all sedimentary rocks from an ancient river delta in the Red Planet's Jezero Crater, NASA confirmed this week. They mark the first-ever sedimentary rocks gathered from another planet. "The rocks that we have

Beijing (XNA) Sep 18, 2022
A research team from China has discovered geological evidence of at least four layers of volcanic lava flows that flooded the landing region of the Chang'e-5 lunar exploration mission, according to a press release from the National Space Science Center (NSSC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. China's Chang'e-5 mission brought a total of 1,731 grams of lunar samples back to Earth at the e

Houston TX (SPX) Sep 18, 2022
Intuitive Machines, LLC ("Intuitive Machines" or the "Company"), a leading space exploration, infrastructure, and services company founded in 2013, and Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: IPAX, IPAXU, IPAXW) ("Inflection Point"), a special purpose acquisition company, has announced that they have signed a definitive business combination agreement that will result in Intuitive Machines be

Boston MA (SPX) Sep 18, 2022
Satellite IM, a fully decentralized peer-to-peer communications platform at the forefront of data privacy, has announced the launch of their communications platform that will allow users to chat directly in a secure, serverless and feature rich environment. The application is a first-of-its-kind, Web3 native social application that gives users full and exclusive ownership of their data. De

Columbia MD (SPX) Sep 18, 2022
Twisted magnetic fields around binary systems can reveal how the stellar system came together. Circumbinary planets - planets that orbit around two stars, like the fictional Star Wars planet Tatooine and its two suns - exist in the Universe, and are sometimes referred to as Tatooine planets. Systems in which two stars rotate around each other, called binary star systems, are incredibly com