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Students can now build their own rover model![]() Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 02, 2018 Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a machine like NASA's Curiosity rover, part of the Mars Science Laboratory project? Now students, hobbyists and enthusiasts can get a taste of what it is like to construct a scaled-down version of a rover using plans and instructions from JPL's Open Source Rover Project. With the successful past and current rovers, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California built a mini-rover ("ROV-E") to engage the public.This rover is brought into class ... read more |
First SLS Core Stage flight hardware complete, ready for joiningHuntsville AL (SPX) Aug 01, 2018 The first major piece of core stage hardware for NASA's Space Launch System rocket has been assembled and is ready to be joined with other hardware for Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated fl ... more
Mars terraforming not possible using present-day technologyGreenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 31, 2018 Science fiction writers have long featured terraforming, the process of creating an Earth-like or habitable environment on another planet, in their stories. Scientists themselves have proposed terra ... more
Scientists looking for ways to grow crops on Red PlanetMoscow (Sputnik) Jul 31, 2018 While humans prepare to land on Mars and eventually colonize it, the question about what people will eat on the Red Planet looms large. Indeed, generating a stable supply of food poses a major ... more
Evidence of subsurface Martian liquid water bolsteredTucson AZ (SPX) Jul 30, 2018 The announcement of the presence of liquid water beneath the surface of Martian poles validates research published by PSI Senior Scientist Stephen Clifford back in 1987. A paper published in t ... more |
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| Previous Issues | Aug 01 | Jul 31 | Jul 30 | Jul 28 | Jul 27 |
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Is Mars' Soil Too Dry to Sustain Life?Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jul 25, 2018 Life as we know it needs water to thrive. Even so, we see life persist in the driest environments on Earth. But how dry is too dry? At what point is an environment too extreme for even microorganism ... more
Mars Express Detects Liquid Water Hidden Under Planet's South PoleNoordwijk, Netherlands (ESA) Jul 26, 2018 Evidence for the Red Planet's watery past is prevalent across its surface in the form of vast dried-out river valley networks and gigantic outflow channels clearly imaged by orbiting spacecraft. Orb ... more
Opportunity Continues in a Deep Sleep Beneath Raging Dust StormPasadena CA (JPL) Jul 25, 2018 The dust storm on Mars is continuing as a Planet-encircling Dust Event (PEDE). The storm has sustained high atmospheric opacity conditions over the Opportunity site for several weeks. The last ... more
Mars Passes Closest to Earth Since 2003 on July 31stBoston MA (SPX) Jul 26, 2018 After a slow crawl across the predawn darkness earlier this year, Mars is finally moving into the evening sky - just as it comes its closest to Earth in 15 years. According to Sky and Telescope maga ... more
Space experts worry US won't make it to Mars by 2030sTampa (AFP) July 26, 2018 The United States has vowed to send the first humans to Mars by the 2030s, but space experts and lawmakers on Wednesday expressed concern that poor planning and lack of funds will delay those plans. ... more |
![]() Liquid water lake discovered on Mars
'Storm Chasers' on Mars Searching for Dusty SecretsPasadena CA (JPL) Jul 23, 2018 In June, one of these dust events rapidly engulfed the planet. Scientists first observed a smaller-scale dust storm on May 30. By June 20, it had gone global. For the Opportunity rover, that m ... more |
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Scientists at Johns Hopkins Discover Why Mars Is So DustyBaltimore MD (SPX) Jul 25, 2018 The dust that coats much of the surface of Mars originates largely from a single thousand-kilometer-long geological formation near the Red Planet's equator, scientists have found. A study publ ... more
Rare Red Moon and Mars in Evening Sky on 27 JulyLondon, UK (SPX) Jul 24, 2018 Skywatchers [in have a double treat in store on 27 July: the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century and Mars at its brightest for many years. The red planet and the (temporarily) red Moon w ... more
NASA's MAVEN Spacecraft Finds That "Stolen" Electrons Enable Unusual Aurora on MarsGreenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 24, 2018 Auroras appear on Earth as ghostly displays of colorful light in the night sky, usually near the poles. Our rocky neighbor Mars has auroras too, and NASA's MAVEN spacecraft just found a new type of ... more
Name Europe's robot to roam and search for life on MarsLondon, UK (ESA) Jul 23, 2018 The UK Space Agency has launched a competition to name a rover that is going to Mars to search for signs of life. Due to launch in 2020, the UK-built rover is part of ESA's ExoMars mission. It ... more
Martian Atmosphere Behaves as OneNoordwijk, The Netherlands (ESA) Jul 19, 2018 Understanding the Martian atmosphere is a key topic in planetary science, from its current status to its past history. Mars's atmosphere continuously leaks out to space and is a crucial factor in th ... more |
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MIDAS cameras spot pair of lunar flashes caused by meteoroid impacts Washington (UPI) Jul 30, 2018
New images from the European Space Agency showcased a pair of recent lunar flashes.
Photographs of the flashes were captured using CCD cameras at a trio of observatories in Spain, which make up the MIDAS project. CCD stands for "charge coupled device."
Lunar flashes occur when space rocks collide with parts of the moon facing away from the sun. Because these parts of the moon are ... more |
China developing in-orbit satellite transport vehicle Beijing (XNA) Jul 23, 2018
China is developing a space vehicle to help transport orbiting satellites that have run out of fuel, Science and Technology Daily reported Thursday.
Fuel is a key factor limiting the life of satellites. Most satellites function for years after entering orbit, but eventually, they have to end their missions and burn up into the atmosphere due to fuel exhaustion.
The vehicle is being d ... more |
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What Looks Like Ceres on Earth Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 30, 2018
With its dark, heavily cratered surface interrupted by tantalizing bright spots, Ceres may not remind you of our home planet Earth at first glance. The dwarf planet, which orbits the Sun in the vast asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is also far smaller than Earth (in both mass and diameter). With its frigid temperature and lack of atmosphere, we're pretty sure Ceres can't support life as w ... more |
New Horizons team prepares for stellar occultation ahead of Ultima Thule flyby Washington DC (SPX) Aug 02, 2018
Successfully observing an object from more than four billion miles away is difficult, yet NASA's New Horizons mission team is banking that they can do that-again.
Preparations are on track for a final set of stellar occultation observations to gather as much information about the size, shape, environment, and other conditions around New Horizons' next flyby target, the ancient Kuiper Belt ... more |
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Cassini data yields super sharp infrared images of Titan Washington (UPI) Jul 19, 2018
Cassini disappeared into Saturn's atmosphere late last year. But the spacecraft continues to yield impressive images.
This week, NASA shared a series of super sharp infrared images of Saturn's moon Titan, compiled using 13 years of data collected by the probe's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS instrument.
The moon's hazy atmosphere prevents clear observations of ... more |
Urban geophone array offers new look at northern Los Angeles basin Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 02, 2018
Using an array of coffee-can sized geophones deployed for about a month in backyards, golf courses and public parks, researchers collected enough data to allow them to map the depth and shape of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino sedimentary basins of Los Angeles, California.
Seismologists think these sedimentary basins may act a "waveguide" to focus and trap energy from an earthquake on t ... more |
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NASA, Commercial Partners Progress to Human Spaceflight Home Stretch Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Aug 01, 2018
NASA and commercial industry partners Boeing and SpaceX are making significant advances in preparing to launch astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle's retirement in 2011. As part of the Commercial Crew Program's public-private partnership, both companies are fine-tuning their designs, integrating hardware, and testing their crew spacecraft and rockets to prepare fo ... more |
Exoplanets where life could develop as on Earth Cambridge UK (SPX) Aug 02, 2018
Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), found that the chances for life to develop on the surface of a rocky planet like Earth are connected to the type and s ... more |
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An insect-inspired drone deforms upon impact Lausanne, Switzerland (SPX) Jul 26, 2018
In recent years, robotics experts have taken a page from the traditional Japanese practice of origami and come up with light and flexible - and highly innovative - robots and drones. Two types of origami-inspired structures have emerged: rigid structures that have a certain weight-bearing capacity but that break if that capacity is exceeded, and flexible yet resilient structures that cannot carr ... more |
NASA's Parker Solar Probe and the curious case of the hot corona Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 30, 2018
Something mysterious is going on at the Sun. In defiance of all logic, its atmosphere gets much, much hotter the farther it stretches from the Sun's blazing surface.
Temperatures in the corona - the tenuous, outermost layer of the solar atmosphere - spike upwards of 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, while just 1,000 miles below, the underlying surface simmers at a balmy 10,000 F. How the Sun m ... more |
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NASA Selects US Firms to Provide Commercial Suborbital Flight Services Edwards AFB CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2018
NASA's Flight Opportunities Program has selected four companies to integrate and fly technology payloads on commercial suborbital reusable platforms that carry payloads near the boundary of space.
The selection is part of NASA's continuing effort to foster a viable market for American commercial reusable suborbital platforms that allow testing of new space technologies within Earth's atmos ... more |
Colliding stars spill radioactive molecules into space Charlottesville VA (SPX) Jul 31, 2018
When two Sun-like stars collide, the result can be a spectacular explosion and the formation of an entirely new star. One such event was seen from Earth in 1670. It appeared to observers as a bright, red "new star."
Though initially visible with the naked eye, this burst of cosmic light quickly faded and now requires powerful telescopes to see the remains of this merger: a dim central star ... more |
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GRAVITY Confirms Predictions of General Relativity Near Galactic Center Paris, France (SPX) Jul 27, 2018
Observations made with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have, for the first time, detected the effects of general relativity predicted by Einstein, in the movement of a star passing into the intense gravitational field of Sagittarius A*, a massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
These results were obtained by the GRAVITY consortium, led b ... more |
Black holes are fuzzy balls of string with an endless appetite for matter Washington (UPI) Jul 31, 2018
A trio of physicists at Ohio State University believe black holes are like "fuzzballs" with an insatiable appetite for matter. And according to their latest research, these fuzzballs are not surrounded by a "firewall."
Classical general relativity presents the black hole as an object with a horizon, beyond which nothing can escape. This dichotomy between something and nothing is referre ... more |
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Optical fibers that can feel the materials around them Lausanne, Switzerland (SPX) Aug 02, 2018
In recent years optical fibers have served as sensors to detect changes in temperature, like a thermometer, and pressure, like an artificial nerve. This technique is particularly useful in structures such as bridges and gas pipelines.
EPFL researchers have now come up with a new method that enables optical fibers to identify whether they are in contact with a liquid or a solid. This is ach ... more |
China developing in-orbit satellite transport vehicle Beijing (XNA) Jul 23, 2018
China is developing a space vehicle to help transport orbiting satellites that have run out of fuel, Science and Technology Daily reported Thursday.
Fuel is a key factor limiting the life of satellites. Most satellites function for years after entering orbit, but eventually, they have to end their missions and burn up into the atmosphere due to fuel exhaustion.
The vehicle is being d ... more |
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