Venus: The trouble with sending people there
Friday, 30 September 2022 14:27
Venus, often called Earth's "evil twin" planet, formed closer to the sun and has since evolved quite differently from our own planet. It has a "runaway" greenhouse effect (meaning heat is completely trapped), a thick carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere, no magnetic field and a surface hot enough to melt lead.
Several uncrewed scientific missions will study how and why that happened in the next decade. But now some scientists want to send a crewed mission there as well for a flyby. Is that a good idea?
With a slightly smaller diameter than Earth, Venus orbits closer to the sun. This means that any water on the surface would have evaporated shortly after its formation, starting its greenhouse effect. Early and sustained volcanic eruptions created lava plains and increased the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—starting the runaway greenhouse effect, which increased the temperature from just a little higher than Earth's to its current high value of 475°C.
While the Venus year is shorter than ours (225 days), its rotation is very slow (243 days) and "retrograde"—the other way round to Earth. The slow rotation is related to a lack of magnetic field, resulting in a continuing loss of atmosphere.
Space Force studying requirements for cislunar space domain awareness
Friday, 30 September 2022 14:21
The Space Force expects to know by next spring what capabilities it will need to carry out space domain awareness activities in cislunar space.
The post Space Force studying requirements for cislunar space domain awareness appeared first on SpaceNews.
Europe’s space industry gathers at ESA
Friday, 30 September 2022 13:45
ESA welcomed a record 1700 visitors from 800 companies and institutions to its Industry Space Days event on 28–29 September at ESTEC, its technical centre in The Netherlands. It is a place where industry can meet and share their ideas for new emerging uses of space and commercial potential.
Week in images: 26-30 September 2022
Friday, 30 September 2022 12:07
Week in images: 26-30 September 2022
Discover our week through the lens
South Korea seeks $32.9 million to launch satellites grounded by Russia sanctions
Friday, 30 September 2022 11:34
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s science ministry plans to set aside 47.2 billion won ($32.9 million) in next year’s budget to launch two satellites that have been left grounded because of Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
NASA and SpaceX to study possible private Hubble servicing mission
Friday, 30 September 2022 11:30
NASA and SpaceX announced Sept. 29 they will study a concept to send a Crew Dragon spacecraft to reboost, and possibly service, the Hubble Space Telescope to extend its life.
The post NASA and SpaceX to study possible private Hubble servicing mission appeared first on SpaceNews.
Satellite Vu signs SpaceX launch contract to deploy thermal monitoring capabilities
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
British Earth Observation company, Satellite Vu has signed a second SpaceX launch contract for their second satellite, doubling their thermal data collection capacity, faster than planned, amidst rising climate concerns.
The deal will see Satellite Vu's unique Mid-wave Infrared (MWIR) imaging satellite launched into Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in early 2024. The sa Asteroid that formed Vredefort crater bigger than previously believed
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
About two billion years ago, an impactor hurtled toward Earth, crashing into the planet in an area near present-day Johannesburg, South Africa. The impactor-most likely an asteroid-formed what is today the biggest crater on our planet.
Scientists have widely accepted, based on previous research, that the impact structure, known as the Vredefort crater, was formed by an object about 15 kilo Once upon a rover
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
Once upon a time - early 2013 - there was a small corner room in the Flight Projects building at JPL where the walls and windows were coated in pages and pages of paper. These pages contained the facts and arguments being assembled by the Mars 2020 Science Definition Team, who were asking: what must the next rover to Mars do?
We rearranged those pages over and over during the next few mont China's Mars rover reveals more of subsurface
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
What does the subsurface of Mars' northern lowlands have in common with a French mille crepe cake? They both consist of a number of layers, according to the latest findings by China's Zhurong Mars rover published in the journal Nature on Monday.
The discovery showed that the evolution of the Martian surface environment is more varied and complex than previously anticipated, experts said. L Lunar glass shows Moon asteroid impacts mirrored on Earth
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
A Curtin-led research team has found asteroid impacts on the Moon millions of years ago coincided precisely with some of the largest meteorite impacts on Earth, such as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
The study also found that major impact events on Earth were not stand-alone events, but were accompanied by a series of smaller impacts, shedding new light on asteroid dynamics in the i Synthetic lava in the lab aids exoplanet exploration
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
The exploration era for the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is getting hot - volcanically hot. A multidisciplinary group of Cornell researchers has modeled and synthesized lava in the laboratory as the kinds of rock that may form on far-away exoplanets. They developed 16 types of surface compositions as a starter catalog for finding volcanic worlds that feature fiery landscapes and oceans New measurement of stellar neutron source reaction resolves long-standing discrepancies
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
The Jinping Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (JUNA) collaboration has reported a recent direct measurement of the cross section of a crucial stellar neutron source reaction, 13C(a,n)16O. The study was published in Physical Review Letters on September 23.
By achieving the most accurate cross sectional measurement of this reaction at astrophysical energies so far, the study has resolved long HawkEye 360 adds new radar and communication signals to RFGeo
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
HawkEye 360 Inc., the world's leading commercial provider of space-based radio frequency (RF) data and analytics, has announced two new signals available as part of its RFGeo signal mapping product: VHF and UHF Flex. RFGeo data and analytics provide a new geospatial data layer that enables RF awareness, utilizing the unique data generated by HawkEye 360's satellite constellation to detect and ge ESA selects Harmony as 10th Explorer mission
Friday, 30 September 2022 10:17
Following preparatory activities and a stringent process ESA Member States today formally selected Harmony for implementation as the tenth Earth Explorer mission within the FutureEO programme. This unique satellite mission concept is, therefore, now set to become a reality to provide a wealth of new information about our oceans, ice, earthquakes and volcanoes - which will make significant contri