Mars News, Science, Technology at MarsDaily.com

August 26, 2019

Atacama Desert microbes may hold clues to life on Mars

Washington DC (SPX) Aug 23, 2019
Microbial life on Mars may potentially be transported across the planet on dust particles carried by wind, according to a study conducted in the Atacama Desert in North Chile, a well-known Mars analogue. The findings are published in Scientific Reports. Armando Azua-Bustos and colleagues investigated whether microbial life could move across the Atacama Desert using on wind-driven dust particles They sought to determine where these microorganisms originate, which may have implications for microbial ... read more

A step closer to solving the methane mystery on Mars
Canberra, Australia (SPX) Aug 22, 2019
Scientists have taken an important step towards revealing the mysterious source of methane on Mars, by refining estimates of the gas in the planet's atmosphere. The methane puffing from a huge ... more

'Game-Changer' for Cosmic Research: NASA Chief Touts Nuclear Powered Spacecraft
Washington DC (Sputnik) Aug 23, 2019
Earlier this month, NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group said that its portable nuclear powered reactor will be ready to fly to Mars by 2022. Speaking at a National Space Council (N ... more

NASA's portable trash bin-sized nuclear power module to be ready by 2022
Washington DC (Sputnik) Aug 14, 2019
The reactor is expected to fulfil a variety of tasks on the red planet, ranging from supplying astronauts with heat and air, to powering 3D printers that will be used for constructing buildings. ... more

Roscosmos postpones joint ESA ExoMars mission after failed parachute tests
Moscow (Sputnik) Aug 16, 2019
Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos said in a statement on Thursday that the launch of the joint Russian-European ExoMars-2020 astrobiology mission, aimed at searching for evidence of life on ... more

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All instruments onboard Rosalind Franklin rover
Paris (ESA) Aug 21, 2019
The full suite of scientific instruments, including cameras that will give us our eyes on Mars, the drill that will retrieve pristine soil samples from below the surface, and the onboard laboratory ... more

Robotic toolkit added to NASA's Mars 2020 Rover
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 16, 2019
The bit carousel - a mechanism that will play a key role in the acquisition, containment and eventual return to Earth of humanity's first samples from another planet - has been incorporated into NAS ... more

Ancient Mars was warm with occasional rain, turning cold
Barcelona, Spain (SPX) Aug 20, 2019
Scientists have long known that water was abundant on ancient Mars, but there has been no consensus on whether liquid water was common, or whether it was largely frozen in ice. Was the temperature h ... more

Methane not released by wind on Mars, experts find
Newcastle UK (SPX) Aug 13, 2019
Wind erosion has been ruled out as the primary cause of methane gas release on Mars, Newcastle University academics have shown. Methane can be produced over time through both geological and bi ... more

NASA descends on Icelandic lava field to prepare for Mars
The Lambahraun Lava Field, Islande (AFP) Aug 14, 2019
To prepare for the next mission to Mars in 2020, NASA has taken to the lava fields of Iceland to get its new robotic space explorer ready for the job. ... more

Optometrists verify Mars 2020 rover's perfect vision
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 07, 2019
Equipped with visionary science instruments, the Mars 2020 rover (https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020) underwent an "eye" exam after several cameras were installed on it. The rover contains an armada of ... more

Dark meets light on Mars
Paris (ESA) Aug 09, 2019
ESA's Mars Express has captured the cosmic contrast of Terra Cimmeria, a region in the southern highlands of Mars marked by impact craters, water-carved valleys, and sand and dust in numerous chocol ... more

New finds for Mars rover, seven years after landing
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 07, 2019
NASA's Curiosity rover has come a long way since touching down on Mars seven years ago. It has traveled a total of 13 miles (21 kilometers) and ascended 1,207 feet (368 meters) to its current locati ... more

MEDLI2 installation on Mars 2020 aeroshell begins
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 05, 2019
Hardware installed onto NASA's Mars 2020 entry vehicle this week will help to increase the safety of future Mars landings. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA's Artemis ... more

World first as kits designed to extract metals from the Moon and Mars blast off for space station tests
London, UK (SPX) Jul 30, 2019
Astronauts will test the devices on board the International Space Station, following the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last night (at 23:01 BST, Thursday 25 July) from NASA's Kenne ... more

Mars 2020 rover does biceps curls

Europe prepares for Mars courier
Paris (ESA) Jul 26, 2019
The first round-trip to the Red Planet will see a European orbiter bringing martian samples back to Earth. ESA is opening the door to industry to build the spacecraft that will deliver the precious ... more

Fueling of NASA's Mars 2020 rover power system begins
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 26, 2019
NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, has given the go-ahead to begin fueling the Mars 2020 rover's Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generato ... more

Trump pits Apollo 11 astronauts against NASA chief
Washington (AFP) July 19, 2019
President Donald Trump welcomed surviving Apollo 11 crew members Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the White House Friday, using the occasion to tell his space chief he would prefer to go straight to Mars without returning to the Moon. ... more

ExoMars radio science instrument readied for Red Planet
Paris (ESA) Jul 23, 2019
An ambitious instrument for ESA's ExoMars 2020 mission has passed its testing in conditions resembling those on the Red Planet. It will now be transported to Russia for its acceptance review, follow ... more

Red wine compound could help protect astronauts on trip to Mars
Washington (UPI) Jul 18, 2019
Resveratrol, a phenol found in red wine, could be used to protect the muscles of astronauts during extended stays in space, like on a mission to Mars. ... more

Mars 2020 Rover: T-Minus One Year and Counting
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 22, 2019
The launch period for NASA's Mars 2020 rover opens exactly one year from July 17, 2020, and extends through Aug. 5, 2020. The mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and ... more

NASA Seeks BIG Ideas from Universities for Tech to Study Dark Regions on the Moon
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 23, 2019

NASA plans to land humans on the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis program. Before astronauts step on the lunar surface again, new technology instruments will study the surface. NASA is engaging the university community for ideas to help achieve some of these activities through its annual Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, which is asking university teams to submi ... more

+ MDA selected to build robotic interfaces for Canadarm3 on Lunar Gateway

+ Seeking innovative ideas for exploring lunar caves

+ Astrobotic selects United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur Rocket for its first Moon mission

+ Thomas Pesquet on a new underwater lunar adventure

+ India's Moon probe enters lunar orbit

+ NASA asks American companies to deliver supplies for Artemis Lunar missions

+ Chandrayaan-2 mission to reach Lunar orbit on 20 August

China's newly launched communication satellite suffers abnormality
Beijing (XNA) Aug 21, 2019

China's new communication satellite ChinaSat 18, sent into space on Monday, has experienced abnormalities, and space engineers are investigating the cause. The ChinaSat 18 satellite was launched at 8:03 p.m. (Beijing Time) on a Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province. The satellite separated with the carrier rocket a ... more

+ China launches first private rocket capable of carrying satellites

+ Chinese scientists say goodbye to Tiangong-2

+ China's space lab Tiangong 2 destroyed in controlled fall to earth

+ From Moon to Mars, Chinese space engineers rise to new challenges

+ China plans to deploy almost 200 AU-controlled satellites into orbit

+ Luokung and Land Space to develop control system for space and ground assets

+ Yaogan-33 launch fails in north China, Possible debris recovered in Laos

New images from asteroid probe yield clues on planet formation
Washington (AFP) Aug 22, 2019

Photographs snapped by a shoebox-sized probe that explored the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu offer new clues about its composition, insights that are expected to help scientists understand the formation of our solar system. The German-French Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) was dropped off by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft on October 3, 2018, free-falling from a height of 41 meters (135 feet ... more

+ Monster Asteroid Nearly Twice as Big as London's Shard Tower Heading Toward Earth - Report

+ The near-Earth asteroid Ryugu - a fragile cosmic 'rubble pile'

+ Scientists to use near-Earth object telescope to observe cosmic mergers

+ Four Candidate Sites Selected for Asteroid Sample Collection

+ Best of both worlds: asteroids and massive mergers

+ Critical Observation Made on During First Night of Return to Operations

+ Largest impact crater in the US, buried for 35 million years

Storms on Jupiter are disturbing the planet's colorful belts
Berkeley CA (SPX) Aug 23, 2019

Storm clouds rooted deep in Jupiter's atmosphere are affecting the planet's white zones and colorful belts, creating disturbances in their flow and even changing their color. Thanks to coordinated observations of the planet in January 2017 by six ground-based optical and radio telescopes and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a University of California, Berkeley, astronomer and her colleagues ... more

+ ALMA shows what's inside Jupiter's storms

+ Young Jupiter was smacked head-on by massive newborn planet

+ Mission to Jupiter's icy moon confirmed

+ Giant Impact Disrupted Jupiter's Core

+ Young Jupiter Was Smacked Head-On by Massive Newborn Planet

+ Hubble showcases new portrait of Jupiter

+ Jupiter's auroras powered by alternating current

A brief astronomical history of Saturn's amazing rings
Los Angeles CA (The Conversation) Aug 15, 2019

Many dream of what they would do had they a time machine. Some would travel 100 million years back in time, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Not many, though, would think of taking a telescope with them, and if, having done so, observe Saturn and its rings. Whether our time-traveling astronomer would be able to observe Saturn's rings is debatable. Have the rings, in some shape or form, exi ... more

+ Yale researcher has a window seat for planning NASA's Dragonfly mission

+ SMU's 'Titans in a jar' could answer key questions ahead of NASA's space exploration

+ The mission of a lifetime: a drone on Titan in 2034

+ Dragonfly Mission to Study Titan for Origins, Signs of Life

+ NASA's Dragonfly Will Fly Around Titan Looking for Origins, Signs of Life

+ "Bathtub rings" around Titan's lakes might be made of alien crystals

+ Cassini reveals new sculpting in Saturn rings

GRACE-FO shows the weight of Midwestern floods
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 21, 2019

In May 2019, after the wettest 12 months ever recorded in the Mississippi River Basin, the region was bearing the weight of 8 to 12 inches (200 to 300 millimeters) more water than average. New data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, which launched in May 2018, showed that there was an increase in water storage in the river basin, extending east arou ... more

+ Capella Space partners with SpaceNet to expand access to SAR data

+ Making microbes that transform greenhouse gases

+ Monitoring the Matterhorn with millions of data points

+ Using lasers to visualize molecular mysteries in our atmosphere

+ Making sense of remote sensing data

+ NASA's Spacecraft Atmosphere Monitor Goes to Work Aboard the International Space Station

+ Earth's last magnetic field reversal took far longer than once thought

Docking aborted for Russia's first humanoid robot in space
Moscow (AFP) Aug 24, 2019

An unmanned spacecraft carrying Russia's first humanoid robot to be sent into orbit failed to dock at the International Space Station on Saturday, in a new setback for Moscow. "Russian cosmonauts issued a command to abort the automated approach of an uncrewed Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station," the US space agency NASA said in a statement. "The craft was unable ... more

+ China's satellite tests pulsar navigation for future deep space exploration

+ Test launches of Boeing's Starliner for ISS mission delayed again

+ EVA complete installation of second Commercial Docking Port on Space Station

+ NASA investigating first crime committed in space: report

+ A space cocktail of science, bubbles and sounds

+ WPI mathematician is helping NASA spacecraft travel faster and farther

+ France's 42: start-up IT school tears up the rule book

Study shows some exoplanets may have greater variety of life than exists on Earth
Barcelona, Spain (SPX) Aug 23, 2019

A new study indicates that some exoplanets may have better conditions for life to thrive than Earth itself has. "This is a surprising conclusion", said lead researcher Dr Stephanie Olson, "it shows us that conditions on some exoplanets with favourable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth." The discovery of ... more

+ A second planet in the Beta Pictoris System

+ Study: NASA data shows Earth-sized exoplanet lacks atmosphere

+ A rare look at the surface of a rocky exoplanet

+ New "Gold Open Access" Planetary Science Journal Launched

+ Does ET exist ponders UVA astronomer

+ How Many Earth-like Planets Are Around Sun-like Stars

+ NASA plans for Webb to zero in on TRAPPIST-1 atmospheres within a year of launch

Iraq paramilitary force says Israel behind latest drone attack
Baghdad (AFP) Aug 25, 2019

Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi accused Israel of a deadly drone attack on Sunday that left one paramilitary fighter dead, the first time the force has directly blamed the Jewish state for such a raid. The attack struck a position held by Brigade 45, a Hashed al-Shaabi unit based near Al-Qaim about 15 kilometres (10 miles) from Iraq's western desertic border with neighbouring Syria. It is the l ... more

+ Hughes partners with startup to extend LTE Coverage using helicopters and UAVs

+ Drone buzzes above vineyard helping Luxembourg winegrower

+ Skyfront Perimeter Drone Performs The First Beyond-Line-of-Sight Flight under FAA Part 107

+ AFRL conducts first flight of robopilot unmanned air platform

+ Teams test swarm autonomy in second major OFFSET field experiment

+ S.Korea tests drone delivery in remote regions

+ DLR conducts flight tests for gyrocopter drones

Proposals selected for small satellites to study interplanetary space
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 16, 2019

NASA has selected two proposals to demonstrate small satellite technologies to improve science observations in deep space, which could help NASA develop better models to predict space weather events that can affect astronauts and spacecraft. "This is the first time that our heliophysics program has funded this kind of technology demonstration," said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Helioph ... more

+ NASA's MMS finds first interplanetary shock

+ Parker Solar Probe completes 2 orbits of Sun

+ Magnetic plasma pulses excited by UK-size swirls in the solar atmosphere

+ Researchers recreate the sun's solar wind and plasma "burps" on Earth

+ Airbus brings a SMILE to ESA

+ 'Terminators' on the sun trigger plasma tsunamis and the start of new solar cycles

+ Details of Solar Science Mission Revealed at UK Astronomy Meeting

'Game-Changer' for Cosmic Research: NASA Chief Touts Nuclear Powered Spacecraft
Washington DC (Sputnik) Aug 23, 2019

Earlier this month, NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group said that its portable nuclear powered reactor will be ready to fly to Mars by 2022. Speaking at a National Space Council (NSC) meeting on Tuesday, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) chief Jim Bridenstine specifically praised the potential use of nuclear thermal propulsion in space exploration. "Tha ... more

+ SNC selects ULA for Dream Chaser launches

+ Hall thrusters will enable longer space missions

+ China launches 3 satellites wth Jielong-1 rocket

+ Secret Russia weapon project: gamechanger or PR stunt?

+ Bolton says Russia 'stole' US hypersonic technology

+ Robotic tool operations bring in-space refueling closer to reality

+ US detect explosion of old European Ariane 4 rocket in space

Maximum mass of lightest neutrino revealed using astronomical big data
London, UK (SPX) Aug 23, 2019

Neutrinos come in three flavours made up of a mix of three neutrino masses. While the differences between the masses are known, little information was available about the mass of the lightest species until now. It's important to better understand neutrinos and the processes through which they obtain their mass as they could reveal secrets about astrophysics, including how the universe is h ... more

+ Physicists use light flashes to discover, control new quantum states of matter

+ Observed explosion of monster star requires new supernova mechanism

+ A new lens for life-searching space telescopes

+ Scientists discover a new type of pulsating star

+ NASA's Hubble captures image of dynamic star death

+ Temperatures of 800 billion degrees in the cosmic kitchen

+ Iron-60 discovery in Antarctic provides data on solar system environment

A key piece to understanding how quantum gravity affects low-energy physics
Trieste, Italy (SPX) Aug 09, 2019

Researchers have, for the first time, identified the sufficient and necessary conditions that the low-energy limit of quantum gravity theories must satisfy to preserve the main features of the Unruh effect. In a new study, led by researchers from SISSA (Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Waterloo, a solid theoretica ... more

+ Fastest eclipsing binary, a valuable target for gravitational wave studies

+ Chameleon Theory Could Change How We Think About Gravity

+ Artificial gravity breaks free from science fiction

+ Researchers find quantum gravity has no symmetry

+ Development of a displacement sensor to measure gravity of smallest source mass ever

+ Gravitational waves leave a detectable mark, physicists say

+ UCLA students touch space with a microgravity experiment

Towards an 'orrery' for quantum gauge theory
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Aug 23, 2019

The interaction between fields and matter is a recurring theme throughout physics. Classical cases such as the trajectories of one celestial body moving in the gravitational field of others or the motion of an electron in a magnetic field are extremely well understood, and predictions can be made with astonishing accuracy. However, when the quantum character of the particles and fields inv ... more

+ Cracking a decades-old test, researchers bolster case for quantum mechanics

+ DARPA making progress on miniaturized atomic clocks for future PNT applications

+ In a quantum future, which starship destroys the other?

+ Lithium fluoride crystals 'see' heavy ions with high energies

+ A new holographic method to simulate black holes with a tabletop experiment

+ Physicists say they've discovered a new state of matter

+ Atomic 'Trojan horse' could inspire new generation of X-ray lasers and particle colliders

Russia sends 'Fedor' its first humanoid robot into space
Moscow (AFP) Aug 22, 2019

Russia on Thursday launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station. Named Fedor, for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research with identification number Skybot F850, the robot is the first ever sent up by Russia. Fedor blasted off in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at 6:38 am Moscow ... more

+ NASA Robots Compete Underground in DARPA Challenge

+ NASA wants your help developing autonomous rovers

+ Amazon, Microsoft, 'putting world at risk of killer AI': study

+ Employees less upset at being replaced by robots than by other people

+ Evolving computers from tools to partners in cyber-physical system design

+ Roach-inspired robot nearly as fast as real thing, unsquashable

+ A computer that understands how you feel

China's newly launched communication satellite suffers abnormality
Beijing (XNA) Aug 21, 2019

+ China launches first private rocket capable of carrying satellites

+ Chinese scientists say goodbye to Tiangong-2

+ China's space lab Tiangong 2 destroyed in controlled fall to earth

+ From Moon to Mars, Chinese space engineers rise to new challenges

+ China plans to deploy almost 200 AU-controlled satellites into orbit

+ Luokung and Land Space to develop control system for space and ground assets

+ Yaogan-33 launch fails in north China, Possible debris recovered in Laos

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