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Is NASA looking at the wrong rocks for clues to Martian life?![]() Washington DC (SPX) May 20, 2019 In 2020, NASA and European-Russian missions will look for evidence of past life on Mars. But while volcanic, igneous rock predominates on the Red Planet, virtually the entire Earth fossil record comes from sedimentary rocks. Addressing the problem in Frontiers in Earth Science, Swedish scientists have begun compiling evidence of fossilized microbes in underexplored igneous rock environments on Earth, to help guide where to search for a Martian fossil record - and what to look for. "We propos ... read more |
Fly over Mount Sharp on MarsPasadena CA (JPL) May 20, 2019 Ever wanted to visit Mars? A new animated video shows what it would be like to soar over Mount Sharp, which NASA's Curiosity rover has been climbing since 2014. This video highlights several r ... more
After the Moon, people on Mars by 2033...or 2060Washington (AFP) May 18, 2019 On December 11, 2017, US President Donald Trump signed a directive ordering NASA to prepare to return astronauts to the Moon "followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations." ... more
Mars 2020 Is Coming TogetherPasadena CA (JPL) May 20, 2019 An engineer inspects the completed spacecraft that will carry NASA's next Mars rover to the Red Planet, prior to a test in the Space Simulator Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasaden ... more
NASA's MRO Completes 60,000 Trips Around MarsPasadena CA (JPL) May 16, 2019 NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hit a dizzying milestone this morning: It completed 60,000 loops around the Red Planet at 10:39 a.m. PDT (1:39 p.m. EDT). On average, MRO takes 112 minutes to circ ... more |
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| Previous Issues | May 19 | May 17 | May 16 | May 15 | May 14 |
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Why this Martian full moon looks like candyPasadena CA (JPL) May 10, 2019 For the first time, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has caught the Martian moon Phobos during a full moon phase. Each color in this new image represents a temperature range detected by Odyssey's infrare ... more
Lockheed Martin completes testing milestone for Mars 2020 heat shieldDenver CO (SPX) May 05, 2019 Protecting against the extremes of space travel is critical to the success of any mission. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has successfully completed the flight hardware structure of the heat shield, va ... more
Martian Dust Could Help Explain Water Loss, Plus Other Learnings From Global StormGreenbelt MD (SPX) May 03, 2019 Dust is not just a household nuisance; it's a planetary one, particularly on Mars. Before astronauts visit the Red Planet, we need to understand how the dust particles that often fill the atmosphere ... more
ESA to Lose Member State Support if ExoMars Launch Postponed - Director-GeneralWashington DC (Sputnik) Apr 26, 2019 The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia's Roscosmos should not consider postponing the launch of the ExoMars mission as its rescheduling will lead to the loss of support from European member coun ... more
InSight lander captures audio of first likely 'quake' on MarsWashington DC (SPX) Apr 24, 2019 NASA's Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely "marsquake." The faint seismic signal, detected by the lander's Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure ... more |
![]() All-woman engineering team heads to NASA Mars competition
A small step for China: Mars base for teens opens in desertJinchang, China (AFP) April 17, 2019 In the middle of China's Gobi desert sits a Mars base simulator, but instead of housing astronauts training to live on the Red Planet, the facility is full of teenagers on a school trip. ... more |
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Things Are Stacking Up for NASA's Mars 2020 SpacecraftPasadena CA (JPL) Apr 19, 2019 For the past few months, the clean room floor in High Bay 1 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been covered in parts, components and test equipment for the Mars 2020 sp ... more
Curiosity Tastes First Sample in 'Clay-Bearing Unit'Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 12, 2019 Scientists working with NASA's Curiosity Mars rover have been excited to explore a region called "the clay-bearing unit" since before the spacecraft launched. Now, the rover has finally tasted its f ... more
Tests for the InSight 'Mole'Bremen, Germany (SPX) Apr 12, 2019 A blue box, a cubic metre of Mars-like sand, a rock, a fully-functional model of the Mars 'Mole' and a seismometer - these are the main components with which the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Z ... more
First results from the ExoMars Trace Gas OrbiterParis (ESA) Apr 12, 2019 New evidence of the impact of the recent planet-encompassing dust storm on water in the atmosphere, and a surprising lack of methane, are among the scientific highlights of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orb ... more
ExoMars carrier module prepares for final pre-launch testingParis (ESA) Apr 08, 2019 The module that will carry the ExoMars rover and surface science platform from Earth to Mars has arrived in Italy for final integration preparations. The module, along with electrical ground s ... more |
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NASA Taps 11 American Companies to Advance Human Lunar Landers Washington DC (SPX) May 20, 2019
NASA has selected 11 companies to conduct studies and produce prototypes of human landers for its Artemis lunar exploration program. This effort will help put American astronauts - the first woman and next man - on the Moon's south pole by 2024 and establish sustainable missions by 2028.
"To accelerate our return to the Moon, we are challenging our traditional ways of doing business. We wi ... more |
China develops new-generation rockets for upcoming missions Beijing (XNA) May 17, 2019
China has developed a number of new-generation carrier rockets to take the country's space industry to the next level.
b>The Long March-7 br> /b>
The Long March-7 is a medium-sized carrier rocket with high reliability and safety. It is designed to launch cargo vehicles during the construction of China's manned space station project and meet the long-term demand for upgrading manned carri ... more |
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Bedbugs survived the impact event that wiped out the dinosaurs Washington (UPI) May 16, 2019
Bedbugs are notoriously difficult to eradicate. Not even the fiery asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs could rid Earth of its bedbug infestation.
DNA analysis of some 30 different bedbug species showed the insect has been around for at least 115 million years.
Previously, scientists suggested bedbugs emerged between 50 and 60 million years ago. Bats were supposedly the b ... more |
NASA's New Horizons Team Publishes First Kuiper Belt Flyby Science Results Laurel MD (SPX) May 17, 2019
NASA's New Horizons mission team has published the first profile of the farthest world ever explored, a planetary building block and Kuiper Belt object called 2014 MU69. Analyzing just the first sets of data gathered during the New Horizons spacecraft's New Year's 2019 flyby of MU69 (nicknamed Ultima Thule) the mission team quickly discovered an object far more complex than expected. The team pu ... more |
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Researchers find ice feature on Saturn's giant moon Tucson AZ (SPX) May 01, 2019
Rain, seas and a surface of eroding organic material can be found both on Earth and on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. However, on Titan it is methane, not water, that fills the lakes with slushy raindrops.
While trying to find the source of Titan's methane, University of Arizona researcher Caitlin Griffith and her team discovered something unexoldpected - a long ice feature that wraps nearl ... more |
3D Earth in the making Paris (ESA) May 20, 2019
A thorough understanding of the 'solid Earth' system is essential for deciphering the links between processes occurring deep inside Earth and those occurring nearer the surface that lead to seismic activity such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the rise of mountains and the location of underground natural resources. Thanks to gravity and magnetic data from satellites along with seismology, ... more |
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NASA Testing Method to Grow Bigger Plants in Space Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) May 20, 2019
In an effort to increase the ability to provide astronauts nutrients on long-duration missions as the agency plans to sustainably return to the Moon and move forward to Mars, the Veg-PONDS-02 experiment is currently underway aboard the International Space Station.
The present method of growing plants in space uses seed bags, referred to as pillows, that astronauts push water into with a sy ... more |
NASA Team Teaches Algorithms to Identify Life Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 20, 2019
If you've seen dental plaque or pond scum, you've met a biofilm. Among the oldest forms of life on Earth, these ubiquitous, slimy buildups of bacteria grow on nearly everything exposed to moisture and leave behind common tell-tale textures and structures identifying them as living or once-living organisms.
Without training and sophisticated microscopes, however, these biofilms can be diffi ... more |
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Northrop Grumman awarded $163.6M to support Army's Hunter drone Washington (UPI) May 13, 2019
Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $163.6 million contract for support services on the U.S. Army's fleet of MQ-5B Hunter drones.
The company will operate, engineer, reconfigure and maintain the unmanned aerial systems as part of the new contract, the Department of Defense said Friday.
Work will be performed at Northrop Grumman's plant in Sierra Vista, Ariz., with the contract es ... more |
Strong Magnetic Storm May Cause Satellites to Deorbit - Russian Academy Moscow (Sputnik) May 15, 2019
One of the strongest magnetic storms in recent years, which began earlier on 14 May and is forecast to continue through the evening, may increase the possibility of spacecraft deorbiting and cause problems in satellite navigation and communication, the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI RAS) said.
"In accordance with the developed scale of magnetic storms, l ... more |
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Rocket Lab to launch rideshare mission for Spaceflight Huntington Beach CA (SPX) May 13, 2019
Rocket Lab announced Friday that its next flight will launch multiple spacecraft on a mission procured by satellite rideshare and mission management provider, Spaceflight. The launch window will open in June, with launch taking place from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula.
The mission is Rocket Lab's seventh Electron launch overall and the company's third for 201 ... more |
CosmoGAN: Training a neural network to study dark matter Berkeley CA (SPX) May 20, 2019
As cosmologists and astrophysicists delve deeper into the darkest recesses of the universe, their need for increasingly powerful observational and computational tools has expanded exponentially. From facilities such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to supercomputers like Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Cori system at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) fa ... more |
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Gravitational waves leave a detectable mark, physicists say Ithaca NY (SPX) May 10, 2019
Gravitational waves, first detected in 2016, offer a new window on the universe, with the potential to tell us about everything from the time following the Big Bang to more recent events in galaxy centers.
And while the billion-dollar Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector watches 24/7 for gravitational waves to pass through the Earth, new research shows those ... more |
'Fire streaks' ever more real in the collisions of atomic nuclei and protons Cracow, Poland (SPX) May 10, 2019
Collisions of lead nuclei take place under extreme physical conditions. Their course can be described using a model which assumes that the transforming, extremely hot matter - the quark-gluon plasma - flows in the form of hundreds of streaks. Until now, the "fire streaks" seemed to be purely theoretical structures. However, the latest analysis of collisions of individual protons reinforces the h ... more |
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Here's Looking at You! Astrobee's First Robot Completes Initial Hardware Checks in Space Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 20, 2019
NASA astronaut Anne McClain performs the first series of tests of an Astrobee robot, Bumble, during a hardware checkout. To her right is the docking station that was installed in the Kibo module on the International Space Station on Feb. 15.
Bumble, and another robot named Honey, launched to the space station on Apr. 17, aboard Northrop Grumman's eleventh commercial resupply services missi ... more |
China develops new-generation rockets for upcoming missions Beijing (XNA) May 17, 2019
China has developed a number of new-generation carrier rockets to take the country's space industry to the next level.
b>The Long March-7 br> /b>
The Long March-7 is a medium-sized carrier rocket with high reliability and safety. It is designed to launch cargo vehicles during the construction of China's manned space station project and meet the long-term demand for upgrading manned carri ... more |
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