The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. While Webb and other space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have previously revealed isolated ingredients of this heated planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds. The latest data also give a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than as a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

Washington DC (UPI) Nov 23, 2021
Communication between NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston and the Artemis I moon mission spacecraft was lost for 47 minutes Wednesday morning. It was resolved by a reconfiguration on the ground side, according to NASA. NASA said in a blog statement that communication was lost temporarily while reconfiguring the communication link between the Orion spacecraft and Deep Space Network

Washington DC (UPI) Nov 23, 2021
A SpaceX rocket carrying a communications satellite blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday night on a mission that will allow improved internet connectivity for passengers aboard ships and planes. The Eutelsat-10B satellite lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 atop the Falcon 9 rocket at 9:57 p.m. before assuming a super synchronous geostationary transfer orbit around the Ear

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 24, 2022
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has been selected by NASA to launch the Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission, as part of the agency's Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract. Rocket Lab will launch the TROPICS mission, which is part of NASA's Earth Syste

Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 24, 2022
From the image Perseverance recently took at Yori Pass, we can see that there are gray rocks scattered on top of a tan colored rock surface below. What do these different colors tell us? As planetary geologists, our job is to figure out through physical and chemical observations the story that these rocks tell us about Yori Pass and its place within the delta in Jezero Crater. Color is one of th

Umea, Sweden (SPX) Nov 24, 2022
In a new thesis from the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and Umea University, unique methods for the analysis of radar data and simulations of meteoroids in the solar system are presented. The methods have been applied to confirm the existence of rare high-altitude meteors as well as to measure space debris from the Kosmos-1408 satellite. On November 25, Daniel Kastinen defends his doctoral t

Chicago IL (SPX) Nov 24, 2022
For centuries, no one knew if we were alone in the universe-or if there were even other planets like ours. But thanks to new telescopes and methods in the past decades, we now know there are thousands and thousands of planets out there circling faraway stars, and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes-large and small, rocky and gaseous, cloudy or icy or wet. A study by scientists

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Nov 24, 2022
An international team of astronomers have turned a new technique onto a group of galaxies and the faint light between them - known as 'intra-group light' - to characterise the stars that dwell there. Lead author of the study published in MNRAS, Dr Cristina Martinez-Lombilla from the School of Physics at UNSW Science, said "We know almost nothing about intra-group light. "The brightes

Fino Mornasco, Italy (SPX) Nov 24, 2022
The space transportation and logistics company D-Orbit has announced the signing of a hosted payload contract with SpacePNT, a Swiss company specialized in the design and manufacturing of low cost high-accuracy GNSS receivers for the New Space satellite market. The contract covers the integration of a new GNSS receiver prototype into ION Satellite Carrier, D-Orbit's proprietary orbital tra

ESA has selected its first new astronauts in more than a decade, although long-term flight opportunities for the agency’s astronaut corps remain uncertain.

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