USGS astrogeology maps are guiding Mars 2020 mission
When you’re planning to explore someplace new, it’s always a good idea to bring a map so you can avoid dangerous terrain. This is true whether you’re heading out for a hike on Earth or you’re landing a rover on Mars. When NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars this week, it will be equipped with some of …
Bringing Mars rocks to Earth; scientist explains the tech, goals
In one week, NASA’s Mars 2020 mission will be arriving at the red planet, and hopefully will place the Perseverance Rover on the surface. Jim Bell is the primary investigator leading a team in charge of one of the camera systems on Perseverance. Bell is a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration …
UAE and China place missions into Mars orbit mere hours apart
Arab world’s first mission to Mars achieves orbit The Arab world’s history-making first interplanetary mission to Mars – the United Arab Emirates Hope Probe – successfully achieved orbit today, Tuesday, Feb. 9, at 10:57 a.m. ET (19:57 UAE time, 1557 GMT),” after a seven-month journey bound for the Red Planet and designed to study the …
Why the International Space Station is riddled with bacteria
Forget Ridley Scott’s Alien. There may be a real-life horror story in space. As one national newspaper headline has warned, the International Space Station is ‘filled with germs’. But should such a revelation really make us scream? The story stems from a new NASA study (reported in Microbiome) which found that some bacterial pathogens, including …
NASA prepares for Seven Minutes of Terror; UAE and China also enroute to Mars
The “Seven Minutes of Terror” is approaching fast for NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission with a touchdown on the surface of the Red Planet at Jezero crater slated of occur in just under weeks on February 18. The groundbreaking astrobiology mission will continue the search for evidence of past or present life on Mars. …
Horgan passionate about studying Mars’ geology
Briony Horgan grew up in Portland, Oregon, where, enjoying the mountains and volcanoes that surrounded the region, she developed a love of geology. A long-standing interest in space made Horgan realize she wasn’t confined to study rocks simply on Earth. Horgan, now an associate professor of planetary science at Purdue, soon will have an opportunity …
Getting to sleep in space is hard – and not exactly restful for the mind and body
We’ve learned a lot about the effects on the human body of going into space by studying astronauts such as British astronaut Tim Peake, who spent six months aboard the International Space Station during 2015 and 2016. Muscles wither, bones become lighter just as they do during the process of ageing and the cardiovascular system …
SpaceX launches record 143 satellites into polar orbit
A recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 soared to orbit Sunday morning with a record-setting number of small satellites in a single flight on their first dedicated SmallSat Rideshare Program mission dubbed Transporter-1, also flying on a rare southern trajectory from Florida’s Spaceport. Liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-1 rideshare mission carrying a total of 143 SmallSats …
Why are scientists trying to manufacture organs in space?
Gravity can be a real downer when you are trying to grow organs. That’s why experiments in space are so valuable. They have revealed a new perspective into biological sciences, including insights into making human tissues. Gravity influences cellular behavior by impacting how protein and genes interact inside the cells, creating tissue that is polarized, …
Curiosity celebrates 3,000 days since landing on Mars
The view from Mars on Sol 3,000 – simply spectacular !!! As she snapped a dramatic new self portrait backdropped by alien scenery from the Red Planet NASA’s groundbreaking Curiosity rover is celebrating 3,000 Sols, or Martian days, of exploration on the Red Planet since she touched down on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012 inside …
China’s Chang’e-5 returns first lunar rock samples since 1976
China’s ambitious Chang’e-5 Moon landing probe successfully brought back over 1.7 kilograms (3.8 pounds) of soil and rock samples gathered from the lunar surface, said the China National Space Administration (CNSA) which operated the groundbreaking mission. “Chang’e-5 probe retrieved about 1,731 grams of samples from the Moon, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). …
Preparing for surgeries in space and on Mars
Last year, it was reported that an astronaut in space had developed a potentially life-threatening blood clot in the neck. This was successfully treated with medication by doctors on Earth, avoiding surgery. But given that space agencies and private spaceflight companies have committed to landing humans on Mars in the coming decades, we may not …
This Week in History: December 27-31
DECEMBER 27, 1984: A team of American meteorite hunters finds the meteorite ALH 84001 in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica. This meteorite was found to have come from Mars, and in 1996 a team led by NASA scientist David McKay reported the presence of possible “microfossils” and other evidence of potential biological activity within …
Comet of the Week: Kohoutek 1973f
Perihelion: 1973 December 28.43, q = 0.142 AU This comet’s story starts about two years before its actual discovery when Brian Marsden (at the IAU’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams) performed some orbital calculations of the long-lost periodic Comet 3D/Biela (a previous “Comet of the Week”). The comet had not been seen since the mid-19th Century …
Special Topic: Putting It All Together
When I first began reading about the solar system as an elementary school student in the mid-1960s, it seemed to be a much simpler place than what we know today. There was the sun, around which orbited nine planets; some of these planets had moons, Jupiter having the most with 12. Between Mars and …
Hydrologist Fadji Maina’s path from Niger to NASA
Ever since she was 10 years old, Fadji Maina knew she wanted to find solutions to water-scarcity problems, especially those in Zinder, Niger, where she grew up. Maina took a giant leap toward her goal earlier in September 2020 when she began work as a computational hydrologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She became …
Japan’s Hayabusa2 brings back dust and rock samples from asteroid
Japanese space scientists are positively gleeful as they have now confirmed that their ambitious Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully collected over 5 grams of pristine black as coal soil and rock samples gathered from the ancient near-earth asteroid Ryugu in a re-entry capsule that parachuted safely to Earth earlier this month after a six-year roundtrip scientific journey …
This Week in History: December 20-26
DECEMBER 20, 1900: Michel Giacobini at Nice Observatory in France discovers the comet now known as Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. This is the parent comet of the Draconid meteor shower and is also the first comet to be visited by a spacecraft; it is a previous “Comet of the Week.” DECEMBER 21, 1969: Comet Tago-Sato-Kosaka 1969g passes …
Comet of the Week: Lovejoy C/2011 W3
Perihelion: 2011 December 16.08, q = 0.006 AU In the “Special Topics” presentation on Kreutz sungrazers eight weeks ago I mentioned that in 2007 Zdenek Sekanina and Paul Chodas published a paper wherein they predicted that a new “cluster” of sungrazers should be arriving within the next few decades, with “its earliest member possibly just several …
Special Topic: Formation of the Planets
Ever since humankind began to discern the overall structure of the solar system a few centuries ago, i.e., that the sun basically resides in the center and the planets orbit around it, this has brought forth questions, for example, how did the planets, and the solar system as a whole, form? A second question would …