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UCF selling experimental Martian dirt - $20 a kilogram, plus shipping![]() Orlando FL (SPX) Oct 01, 2018 The University of Central Florida is selling Martian dirt, $20 a kilogram plus shipping. This is not fake news. A team of UCF astrophysicists has developed a scientifically based, standardized method for creating Martian and asteroid soil known as simulants. "The simulant is useful for research as we look to go to Mars," said Physics Professor Dan Britt, a member of UCF's Planetary Sciences Group. "If we are going to go, we'll need food, water and other essentials. As we are developing solut ... read more |
Opportunity Remains Silent For Over Three MonthsPasadena CA (JPL) Oct 01, 2018 No signal from Opportunity has been heard in over 115 sols, since Sol 5111 (June 10, 2018). It is expected that Opportunity has experienced a low-power fault. Perhaps, a mission clock fault an ... more
Software finds the best way to stick a Mars landingBoston MA (SPX) Oct 01, 2018 Selecting a landing site for a rover headed to Mars is a lengthy process that normally involves large committees of scientists and engineers. These committees typically spend several years weighing ... more
How a tiny Curiosity motor identified a massive Martian dust stormGreenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 27, 2018 There is no shortage of eyeballs, human and robotic, pointed at Mars. Scientists are constantly exploring the Red Planet from telescopes on Earth, plus the six spacecraft circling the planet from it ... more
Martian moon likely forged by ancient impact, study findsWashington (UPI) Sep 24, 2018 New research suggest Mars' largest moon, Phobos, was formed from Martian debris excised by an ancient impact. ... more |
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| Previous Issues | Sep 28 | Sep 27 | Sep 26 | Sep 25 | Sep 24 |
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Ancient Mars had right conditions for underground lifeProvidence RI (SPX) Sep 25, 2018 A new study shows evidence that ancient Mars probably had an ample supply of chemical energy for microbes to thrive underground. "We showed, based on basic physics and chemistry calculations, ... more
NASA's MAVEN Selfie Marks Four Years in Orbit at MarsGreenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 24, 2018 Today, NASA's MAVEN spacecraft celebrates four years in orbit studying the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet and how it interacts with the Sun and the solar wind. To mark the occasion, the team has ... more
ScanMars demonstrates water detection device for astronauts on MarsBerlin, Germany (SPX) Sep 21, 2018 Analogue astronauts have successfully trialed a radar that could help future Mars explorers identify where to dig for water. ScanMars is an Italian experiment that was used to identify subsurface wa ... more
Hit-and-Run Heist of Water by Terrestrial Planets in the Early Solar SystemBerlin, Germany (SPX) Sep 20, 2018 A study simulating the final stages of terrestrial planet formation shows that 'hit-and-run' encounters play a significant role in the acquisition of water by large protoplanets, like those that gre ... more
Opportunity silent since June 10Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 21, 2018 The Opportunity team is increasing the frequency of commands it beams to the rover via the dishes of NASA's Deep Space Network from three times a week to multiple times per day. No signal from ... more |
![]() Candy-Pink lagoon serves up salt-rich diet for potential life on Mars
Recent tectonics on MarsParis (ESA) Sep 20, 2018 These prominent trenches were formed by faults that pulled the planet's surface apart less than 10 million years ago. The images were taken by ESA's Mars Express on 27 January, and capture par ... more |
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Attempting Contact With Opportunity Multiple Times A DayPasadena CA (JPL) Sep 19, 2018 The Opportunity team is increasing the frequency of commands it beams to the rover via the dishes of NASA's Deep Space Network from three times a week to multiple times per day. No signal from ... more
ExoMars orbiter highlights radiation risk for Mars astronautsBerlin, Germany (ESA) Sep 19, 2018 Astronauts on a mission to Mars would be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their career during the journey itself to and from the Red Planet, according to dat ... more
River basin provides evidence of ancient ocean on MarsWashington (UPI) Sep 14, 2018 Mars was once home to a giant ocean, new research suggests. ... more
Curiosity Surveys a Mystery Under Dusty SkiesPasadena CA (JPL) Sep 07, 2018 After snagging a new rock sample on Aug. 9, NASA's Curiosity rover surveyed its surroundings on Mars, producing a 360-degree panorama of its current location on Vera Rubin Ridge. The panorama ... more
Making space exploration real on EarthParis (ESA) Sep 05, 2018 You are on a rock speeding through space. On this rock called Earth every single mineral tells you something about planetary formation. This week astronauts and space engineers will unlock the myste ... more |
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Russia's lunar exploration program should be part of internatinal project Moscow (Sputnik) Oct 01, 2018
Russia's lunar exploration program should be a part of an international project, as none of major space powers is capable to explore Earth's only permanent natural satellite without support of other states, the director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anatoly Petrukovich, told Sputnik.
Earlier in September, Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Russian ... more |
China launches Centispace-1-s1 satellite Jiuquan (XNA) Oct 01, 2018
China launched its Centispace-1-s1 satellite on a Kuaizhou-1A rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12:13 p.m. Saturday.
This is the second commercial launch by the Kuaizhou-1A rocket. The first launch in January 2017 sent three satellites into space.
The Kuaizhou-1A was developed by a rocket technology company under the China Aerospace Science and Industr ... more |
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Interstellar object 'Oumuamua traced to four possible stellar homes Washington (UPI) Sep 25, 2018
The interstellar object 'Oumuamua came from somewhere outside the solar system, but where has remained a mystery.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, however, have identified four stellar candidates from which the object may have originated.
Astronomers first spotted 'Oumuamua in 2017. Unfortunately, by the time scientists noticed the oblong visitor, it was alre ... more |
New Horizons Team Rehearses For New Year's Flyby Laurel MD (SPX) Oct 01, 2018
You never know what you're going to see when you visit a world for the first time - particularly when it's on the solar system's most distant frontier - but you can get ready to see it.
NASA's New Horizons science team recently wrapped up a three-day rehearsal of the busiest days around the mission's Dec. 31- Jan. 1 flyby of Ultima Thule, a Kuiper Belt object orbiting a billion miles beyon ... more |
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Dust storms on Titan spotted by Cassini for the first time Paris (ESA) Sep 25, 2018
Data from the international Cassini spacecraft that explored Saturn and its moons between 2004 and 2017 has revealed what appear to be giant dust storms in equatorial regions of Titan.
The discovery, described in a paper published in Nature Geoscience, makes Titan the third body in the Solar System where dust storms have been observed - the other two are Earth and Mars.
The observati ... more |
Three Earth Explorer ideas selected Paris (ESA) Sep 24, 2018
As part of ESA's continuing commitment to realise cutting-edge satellite missions to advance scientific understanding of our planet and to show how new technologies can be used in space, three new ideas have been chosen to compete as the tenth Earth Explorer mission.
The decision follows the release of a call for ideas in September 2017. Out of the 21 proposals submitted, ESA's Advisory Co ... more |
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Partnership, Teamwork Enable Landmark Science Glovebox Launch to Space Station Houston TX (SPX) Sep 25, 2018
As the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's H-IIB rocket carries NASA's Life Sciences Glovebox toward its berth on the International Space Station, hardware specialists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and their partners around the world are eager to initiate new, high-value biological research in Earth orbit.
The JAXA H-IIB rocket, hauling the state-of-the-ar ... more |
Gaia finds candidates for interstellar 'Oumuamua's home Paris (ESA) Sep 26, 2018
Using data from ESA's Gaia stellar surveyor, astronomers have identified four stars that are possible places of origin of 'Oumuamua, an interstellar object spotted during a brief visit to our Solar System in 2017.
The discovery last year sparked a large observational campaign: originally identified as the first known interstellar asteroid, the small body was later revealed to be a comet, a ... more |
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General Atomics to provide technical services for Gray Eagle drones Washington (UPI) Oct 1, 2018
General Atomics has received a $441.6 million contract for technical services for U.S. Army Gray Eagle Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
Work locations and funding for the contract, announced Friday by the Department of Defense, will be based on each order, with an estimated completion date of September 2023.
The Gray Eagle is a derivative of the Predator unmanned aerial drone designed ... more |
Illuminating First Light Data from Parker Solar Probe Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 20, 2018
Just over a month into its mission, Parker Solar Probe has returned first-light data from each of its four instrument suites. These early observations - while not yet examples of the key science observations Parker Solar Probe will take closer to the Sun - show that each of the instruments is working well. The instruments work in tandem to measure the Sun's electric and magnetic fields, particle ... more |
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Nucleus completes successful first launch Kirkenes, Norway (SPX) Oct 01, 2018
On Thursday 27 September Nammo successfully completed the first launch of Nucleus, a sounding rocket powered by its new hybrid rocket motor.
Nucleus launched at 14:16: local time from Andoya Space Center in Northern Norway, and reached an altitude of 107.4 km. That made it not only the first rocket powered by a Norwegian motor design to cross the Karman line, the commonly recognized border ... more |
Gaia detects a shake in the Milky Way Barcelona, Spain (SPX) Sep 25, 2018
"We have observed shapes with different morphologies, such as a spiral similar to a snail's shell. The existence of these substructures has been observed for the first time thanks to the unprecedented precision of the data brought by Gaia satellite, from the European Space Agency (ESA)", says Teresa Antoja, researcher at ICCUB (IEEC-UB) and first signer of the article.
"These substructures ... more |
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GRACE-FO Satellite Switching to Backup Instrument Processing Unit Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 17, 2018
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission team plans to switch to a backup system in the Microwave Instrument (MWI) on one of the twin spacecraft this month. Following the switch-over, GRACE-FO is expected to quickly resume science data collection.
A month after launching this past May, GRACE-FO produced its first preliminary gravity field map. The mission ha ... more |
How long does a quantum jump take? Vienna, Austria (SPX) Sep 25, 2018
It was one of the crucial experiments in quantum physics: when light falls on certain materials, electrons are released from the surface. Albert Einstein was the first to explain this phenomenon in 1905, when he spoke of "light quanta" - the smallest units of light that we call photons today.
In tiny fractions of a second, an electron of the material absorbs a photon, "jumps" into another ... more |
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Machine-learning system tackles speech and object recognition, all at once Boston MA (SPX) Sep 27, 2018
MIT computer scientists have developed a system that learns to identify objects within an image, based on a spoken description of the image. Given an image and an audio caption, the model will highlight in real-time the relevant regions of the image being described.
Unlike current speech-recognition technologies, the model doesn't require manual transcriptions and annotations of the exampl ... more |
China launches Centispace-1-s1 satellite Jiuquan (XNA) Oct 01, 2018
China launched its Centispace-1-s1 satellite on a Kuaizhou-1A rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12:13 p.m. Saturday.
This is the second commercial launch by the Kuaizhou-1A rocket. The first launch in January 2017 sent three satellites into space.
The Kuaizhou-1A was developed by a rocket technology company under the China Aerospace Science and Industr ... more |
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