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New study suggests possibility of recent underground volcanism on Mars![]() Washington DC (SPX) Feb 13, 2019 A study published last year in the journal Science suggested liquid water is present beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars. Now, a new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters argues there needs to be an underground source of heat for liquid water to exist underneath the polar ice cap. The new research does not take sides as to whether the liquid water exists. Instead, the authors suggest recent magmatic activity - the formation of a magma chamber within the past few hundred thousan ... read more |
DLR 'Mole' deployed on surface of MarsCologne, Germany (SPX) Feb 14, 2019 It stands vertically on flat ground, ready for its historic mission. At 19:18 CET on 12 February 2019, the German Aerospace Center Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) or 'Mole' was deplo ... more
InSight Prepares to Take Mars's TemperatureWashington DC (SPX) Feb 14, 2019 NASA's InSight lander has placed its second instrument on the Martian surface. New images confirm that the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, or HP3, was successfully deployed on Feb. 12 abo ... more
Mars Rover Opportunity Ends Mission After 15 YearsIthaca NY (SPX) Feb 13, 2019 The Mars rover Opportunity, NASA's robotic geologist fitted with an array of tools to search for evidence of water, ended its mission Feb. 13 - three weeks after its 15th anniversary and long past i ... more
NASA announces demise of Opportunity roverWashington (AFP) Feb 14, 2019 During 14 years of intrepid exploration across Mars, it advanced human knowledge by confirming that water once flowed on the red planet - but NASA's Opportunity rover has analyzed its last soil sample. ... more |
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NASA Administrator says Agency plans to 'go to the Moon and stay'Washington DC (Sputnik) Feb 11, 2019 Jim Bridenstine, the space agency's administrator, said that NASA plans to return people to the Moon and have astronauts explore more of the surface for longer periods. The NASA administrator ... more
More than 835 recovery commands have been sent to OpportunityPasadena CA (JPL) Feb 11, 2019 Mars atmospheric opacity (tau) over the rover site is estimated to be somewhere in the range of 0.9 to 1.3. No signal from Opportunity has been heard since Sol 5111 (June 10, 2018) during the ... more
ESA's Mars rover has a name - Rosalind FranklinParis (ESA) Feb 08, 2019 The ExoMars rover that will search for the building blocks of life on the Red Planet has a name: Rosalind Franklin. The prominent scientist behind the discovery of the structure of DNA will have her ... more
Beyond Mars, the Mini MarCO Spacecraft Fall SilentPasadena CA (JPL) Feb 06, 2019 Before the pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft known collectively as MarCO launched last year, their success was measured by survival: If they were able to operate in deep space at all, they would be ... more
InSight's Seismometer Now Has a Cozy Shelter on MarsPasadena CA (JPL) Feb 05, 2019 For the past several weeks, NASA's InSight lander has been making adjustments to the seismometer it set on the Martian surface on Dec. 19. Now it's reached another milestone by placing a domed shiel ... more |
![]() What Can Curiosity Tell Us About How a Martian Mountain Formed
Innovative GEDI Instrument Now Gathering Forest DataGreenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 04, 2019 NASA instrument scientist Bryan Blair had just finished writing the flight software for the agency's Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, or MOLA, when he was invited in 1991 to fly a lidar instrument aboa ... more |
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Research Uses Curiosity Rover to Measure Gravity on MarsCollege Park MD (SPX) Feb 01, 2019 Apollo 17 astronauts drove a moon buggy across the lunar surface in 1972, measuring subtle changes in gravitational pull with an instrument called a gravimeter. Although there are no astronauts on M ... more
Curiosity Says Farewell to Mars' Vera Rubin RidgePasadena CA (JPL) Jan 29, 2019 NASA's Curiosity rover has taken its last selfie on Vera Rubin Ridge and descended toward a clay region of Mount Sharp. The twisting ridge on Mars has been the rover's home for more than a yea ... more
Mars Rover Curiosity Makes Gravity-Measuring TraverseTempe AZ (SPX) Jan 31, 2019 A clever use of non-science engineering data from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has let a team of researchers, including an Arizona State University graduate student, measure the density of rock layer ... more
NASA's Opportunity Rover Logs 15 Years on MarsPasadena CA (JPL) Jan 25, 2019 NASA's Opportunity rover begins its 16th year on the surface of Mars today. The rover landed in a region of the Red Planet called Meridiani Planum on Jan. 24, 2004, sending its first signal back to ... more
Prolonged spaceflight could weaken astronauts' immune systemsTucson AZ (SPX) Jan 24, 2019 NASA hopes to send humans to Mars by 2030 on a round-trip mission that could take up to three years - far longer than any human has ever traveled in space. Such long-term spaceflights could adversel ... more |
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China's lander and rover power down for lunar night Beijing (Sputnik) Feb 13, 2019
Last week, NASA released unique satellite reconnaissance photos of the landing site of the Chinese lunar mission, which made history last month by achieving humanity's first-ever successful soft landing on the far side of the Moon.
China's Chang'e-4 spacecraft and its Yutu-2 lunar rover have entered sleep mode to wait out the cold lunar night, during which temperatures can plunge to as low ... more |
China improves Long March-6 rocket for growing commercial launches Beijing (XNA) Feb 12, 2019
China announced Monday that it is developing the modified version of the Long March-6 rocket to add four solid boosters to increase its carrying capacity.
The improved medium-left carrier rocket will be sent into space by 2020, according to the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which designed the rocket.
The Long ... more |
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Insulating crust kept cryomagma liquid for millions of years on nearby dwarf planet Austin TX (SPX) Feb 13, 2019
A recent NASA mission to the dwarf planet Ceres found brilliant, white spots of salts on its surface. New research led by The University of Texas at Austin in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) delved into the factors that influenced the volcanic activity that formed the distinctive spots and that could play a key role in mixing the ingredients for life on other worlds.
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Ultima Thule is more pancake than snowman, NASA scientists discover Washington (UPI) Feb 11, 2019
Ultima Thule is flatter than scientists originally thought.
As revealed by the latest images captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, only recently downloaded and analyzed by mission scientists, the Kuiper Belt object is more pancake than snowman.
The new images were some of the last New Horizons snapped as it zoomed past the distant object at a speed of 31,000 miles per hour. ... more |
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Scientist sheds light on Titan's mysterious nitrogen atmosphere San Antonio TX (SPX) Jan 24, 2019
A new Southwest Research Institute study tackles one of the greatest mysteries about Titan, one of Saturn's moons: the origin of its thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. The study posits that one key to Titan's mysterious atmosphere is the "cooking" of organic material in the moon's interior.
"Titan is a very interesting moon because it has this very thick atmosphere, which makes it unique amo ... more |
In Solar System's Symphony, Earth's Magnetic Field Drops the Beat Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 13, 2019 Space isn't silent. In fact, an entire orchestra of instruments fills our near-Earth environment with eerie sounds. Scientists have long known about space phenomena involving electromagnetic waves travelling around Earth that resonate like string instruments and whistle like wind instruments. Now, new research published in Nature Communications has added a percussive member to the cosmic ensembl ... more |
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Five future astronauts and a teacher you need to know Washington DC (SPX) Feb 13, 2019
All five of the women in NASA's latest class of astronaut candidates followed a passion for adventure and science to get where they are today and are inspirations for the next generation of NASA scientists.
Kayla Barron, Zena Cardman, Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara and Jessica Watkins are nearing the end of two years of intensive training that began in August 2017. They were selected out of ... more |
Scientists discover oldest evidence of mobility on Earth Cardiff UK (SPX) Feb 12, 2019
Ancient fossils of the first ever organisms to exhibit movement have been discovered by an international team of scientists.
Discovered in rocks in Gabon and dating back approximately 2.1 billion years, the fossils suggest the existence of a cluster of single cells that came together to form a slug-like multicellular organism that moved through the mud in search of a more favourable enviro ... more |
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Hughes satellite modems power beyond-line-of-sight comms for UAVs Germantown MD (SPX) Feb 11, 2019
Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services, has announced the first shipments of its specialized, multiband HM400 SATCOM modems to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), powering beyond-line-of-sight communications for their next-generation Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) known as the MQ-9B SkyGuardian.
Customized to m ... more |
Shedding light on the science of auroral breakups Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Feb 11, 2019
Auroras, also known as Northern or Southern lights depending on whether they occur near the North or South Pole, are natural displays of light in the Earth's sky. Typically these lights are dimly present at night. However, sometimes these otherwise faint features explode in brightness and can even break up into separate glowing hallmarks, appearing as spectacular bursts of luminous manifestation ... more |
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Raptor engine beats Russian RD-180 record in combustion chamber pressure says Musk Moscow (Sputnik) Feb 12, 2019
The new methane-fueled Raptor engine developed by US SpaceX aerospace company for its Starship interplanetary craft has outperformed the Russian RD-180 rocket engine in terms of pressure level in the combustion chamber, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Monday.
"Raptor reached 268.9 bar [approximately 274.2 kilograms of power per square centimeter], exceeding prior record held by the awesome Ru ... more |
A stellar flare 10 billion times more powerful than those on the Sun Honolulu HI (SPX) Feb 12, 2019
The Hawaii-based James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) has discovered a stellar flare 10 billion times more powerful than the Sun's solar flares, a history-making discovery that could unlock decades-old questions about the origin of our own Sun and planets, giving insight into how these celestial bodies were born.
"A discovery of this magnitude could have only happened in Hawaii," said Dr. ... more |
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New squeezing record at GEO600 gravitational-wave detector Hannover, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2018
The detection of Einstein's gravitational waves relies on highly precise laser measurements of small length changes. The kilometer-size detectors of the international network (GEO600, LIGO, Virgo) are so sensitive that they are fundamentally limited by tiny quantum mechanical effects.
These cause a background noise which overlaps with gravitational-wave signals. This noise is always presen ... more |
Lightning's electromagnetic fields may have protective properties Tel Aviv, Israel (SPX) Feb 11, 2019 Lightning was the main electromagnetic presence in the Earth's atmosphere long before the discovery and application of electricity. There are some 2,000 thunderstorms active at any given time, so humans and other organisms have been bathed in extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields for billions of years.
These electromagnetic fields - the result of global lightning activity known as Schumann ... more |
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Trump orders government to prioritize artificial intelligence Washington (AFP) Feb 12, 2019
President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the US administration to give greater priority to artificial intelligence, a move seen as firing up a battle for leadership with China.
The American AI Initiative executive order calls for the administration to "devote the full resources of the federal government" to help fuel AI innovation.
"Americans have profited tremendously from being the ear ... more |
China improves Long March-6 rocket for growing commercial launches Beijing (XNA) Feb 12, 2019
China announced Monday that it is developing the modified version of the Long March-6 rocket to add four solid boosters to increase its carrying capacity.
The improved medium-left carrier rocket will be sent into space by 2020, according to the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which designed the rocket.
The Long ... more |
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