Washington DC (UPI) Jul 8, 2021
An amazing surprise greeted NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft as it touched down on the asteroid Bennu in 2020 - The asteroid was not what it seemed - according to research published Thursday in the journals Science and Science Advances. After it analyzed data from the spacecraft, NASA said it would have sunk into the asteroid if it hadn't fired thrusters to lift off as soon as it collecte

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 08, 2022
After analyzing data gathered when NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample from asteroid Bennu in October 2020, scientists have learned something astonishing: The spacecraft would have sunk into Bennu had it not fired its thrusters to back away immediately after it grabbed dust and rock from the asteroid's surface. It turns out that the particles making up Bennu's exterior are so l

Beijing (XNA) Jul 10, 2022
A joint research team of Chinese and Australian astronomers has detected a binary star system ejecting a common envelope, a key process of the binary star evolution, which could be of great importance to studies of the expansion of the universe and dark energy. This is the first time that scientists have observed direct evidence of the key process of the evolution of the common envelope of

Nuremberg, Germany (SPX) Jul 10, 2022
Lots of little dots with no apparent pattern: where laypeople may just see milky gray photos sprinkled with what looks like random crumbs, it is enough to make astronomers' hearts miss a beat. We are talking about historical photographic plates showing negatives of the night sky. Together with the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam and the universities of Hamburg and Tartu (Estonia

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jul 10, 2022
Nitriles, a class of organic molecules with a cyano group, that is, a carbon atom bound with a triple unsaturated bond to a nitrogen atom, are typically toxic. But paradoxically, they are also a key precursor for molecules essential for life, such as ribonucleotides, composed of the nucleobases or 'letters' A, U, C, and G joined to a ribose and phosphate group, which together make up RNA. Now, a

Boca Raton LA (SPX) Jul 10, 2022
Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP), a global leader in satellite solutions, primarily serving the United States and Allied aerospace and defense industries, has announced the successful completion of CAPSTONE's first TCM burn (TCM-1). As the first statistical maneuver of the mission, TCM-1 is designed to clean up expected dispersions from the launch vehicle injection - enabling CAPSTONE to

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 10, 2022
Elon Musk's SpaceX has announced its new Starlink Maritime service to provide satellite internet to yachts and oil rigs for $5,000 per month. Starlink Maritime on its website advertises low-latency connection with download speeds of up to 350 megabytes-per-second while at sea, boasting that users can "connect from the most remote waters in the world." The company said that the Starli

Maxwell AFB AL (The Conversation) Jul 10, 2022
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson recently expressed concerns over China's aims in space, and in particular, that China would, in some way, claim ownership over the Moon and stop other countries from exploring it. In an interview with a German newspaper, Nelson cautioned, "We must be very concerned that China is landing on the Moon and saying: 'It's ours now and you stay out.'" China immediately de

Beijing (XNA) Jul 10, 2022
Though China now has more than 1.7 kilograms of lunar soil gathered from its historic Chang'e 5 mission, the government practices a prudent policy when it comes to distributing these valuable samples to researchers. Professor Wang Zaicong, a senior researcher at the School of Earth Sciences of the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, Hubei province, said his team received 200 milligra

Dallas TX (SPX) Jul 10, 2022
Jacobs (NYSE:J) was awarded the JSC Engineering, Technology, and Science (JETS) II contract at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Jacobs is scheduled to begin contract transition on Aug. 1 to continue providing engineering and scientific products and technical services for NASA at Johnson Space Center (JSC). The contract maximum value is estimated at approximately $3.9 billion ov