New York State Drinking Testosterone 👌

Thursday, December 12, 2024

After crashing on Mars, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter could live on as a weather station for 20 years

Ingenuity helicopter could live on as a Mars weather station | Space Quiz! How long does it take Jupiter to complete one orbit around the sun? | ORCs! Odd radio circle in 'completely unexpected discovery'

Created for znamenski.spacecom@blogger.com | Web Version

December 12, 2024

CONNECT WITH SPACE.COM

Something amazing every day.

The Launchpad

Ingenuity helicopter could live on as a Mars weather station

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS)

After conducting the "first aircraft investigation on another world," Ingenuity's mission managers at JPL say the helicopter could have a second life on the Red Planet. "We are very proud to report that, even after the hard landing in flight, 72 avionics battery sensors have all been functional, and she still has one final gift for us, which is that she's now going to continue on as a weather station of sorts, recording telemetry, taking images every single sol and storing them on board," said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity's project manager at JPL, during the team's presentation at AGU.

Full Story: Space (12/11)

Space Quiz! How long does it take Jupiter to complete one orbit around the sun?

Learn the answer here!

ORCs! Odd radio circle in 'completely unexpected discovery'

(Ray Norris., et al/ arxiv (2024))

Astronomers have discovered another mysterious and massive circle of radio light in space. The strange and vast circle of light is an example of an ORC (Odd Radio Circle), the origins of which are currently unknown. ORCS, first discovered in 2019, are so vast they can be 10 times the width of the Milky Way, thus encompassing entire galaxies.

Full Story: Space (12/11)

Spaceflight

Japan's ispace plans to land mining missions on the moon

(ispace)

Space mining is inching closer to reality with the latest agreement between Japanese lunar exploration company ispace and lunar prospecting company Magna Petra. In a memo of understanding, ispace and Magna Petra have agreed to collaborate to utilize the moon's resources for economic benefits to life on Earth, the companies announced

Full Story: Space (12/11)

Science & Astronomy

Gas giants show changes over 10 years of Hubble images

(NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

For the past decade, NASA's Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL) has been obtaining detailed views of the long-term changes in the skies of the four closest giants to Earth: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, each home to a unique set of atmospheric variables. OPAL data has allowed astronomers to observe weather patterns and seasons of these outer planets to better understand their dynamics and changes over time.

Full Story: Space (12/12)

SpaceX

NASA's 3D-sky-mapping satellite set for February launch

(BAE Systems)

An ambitious NASA mission to map the sky in 3D using a space-based observatory now has a target launch date of late February 2025. NASA's compact car-sized observatory, called Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (or just SPHEREx for short), will map the millions of stars and galaxies visible from our planet in every direction, "like scanning the inside of a globe," according to an agency statement. The satellite will launch into a polar orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Full Story: Space (12/11)

Technology

NASA will fly F-15s through X-59's supersonic shock waves

(NASA/Steve Freeman)

NASA is planning to fly its F-15B jets through supersonic shock waves in order to help test its revolutionary X-59 jet. When aircraft break the sound barrier, they produce shock waves that reverberate through the surrounding air and produce the thunderous sonic booms typically associated with supersonic flight. The X-59, developed by Lockheed Martin and NASA, was designed with a radical new geometry that could help reduce these booms down to a much quieter "thump." NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center is planning to fly an F-15B research aircraft behind the X-59 during supersonic flight, carrying two specially designed probes that will collect "precise pressure data" about the X-59's shock waves.

Full Story: Space (12/11)

Future US LLC ©
Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Rocket Lab's secretive launch last month was a hypersonic test for the US military (photos)

Rocket Lab's last launch was a US military hypersonic test | Space Quiz! Where on Mars is NASA's Curiosity Rover? | 'Great Filter' could explain why we haven't found aliens

Created for znamenski.spacecom@blogger.com | Web Version

December 11, 2024

CONNECT WITH SPACE.COM

Something amazing every day.

The Launchpad

Rocket Lab's last launch was a US military hypersonic test

(Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab's pioneering suborbital launch last month conducted hypersonic tests for the U.S. military, the company has revealed. The mission in question lifted off on Nov. 24 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Virginia's Wallops Island. It employed HASTE, the suborbital variant of Rocket Lab's workhorse Electron launcher. Less than 22 hours later, an Electron lofted five "Internet of Things" satellites to orbit for the French company Kinéis, notching an unprecedented spaceflight doubleheader for Rocket Lab.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

Space Quiz! Where on Mars is NASA's Curiosity Rover?

Learn the answer here!

'Great Filter' could explain why we haven't found aliens

(Yuga Kurita/Getty Images)

"Where is everybody?" That famous phrase, uttered over lunch by eminent physicist Enrico Fermi, perfectly encapsulated what has since become known as the Fermi paradox: If life happened here on Earth and the universe tends to not do things only once, then life should also occur elsewhere. In fact, the universe should be teeming with advanced spacefaring civilizations.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

Skywatching

Geminid meteor shower fills the sky with 'shooting stars'

(Miguel Claro)

This image of the Geminid meteor shower is the result of a fair amount of work consisting of aligning stars aligning and combining ten folders that each contained hundreds of gigabytes of photos. The images were captured from Dark Sky Alqueva Researve in Portugal. The meteors were captured by different cameras that I set up for two consecutive nights during the 2023 Geminid meteor shower. I managed to catch more than 100 meteors in total, from the brightest ones to the faintest streaks.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

Science & Astronomy

LHC finds 1st evidence of the heaviest antimatter particle

(Janik Ditzel for the ALICE collaboration)

The world's most massive science experiment has done it again, detecting hints of the heaviest antimatter particle ever found. This means the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, has given scientists a glimpse into conditions that existed when the universe was less than a second old. The antimatter particle is the partner of a massive matter particle called hyperhelium-4, and its discovery could help scientists tackle the mystery of why regular matter came to dominate the universe, despite the fact that matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the dawn of time.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

SpaceX

SpaceX rocket launch tops the Christmas tree at Vandenberg

(U.S. Space Force/Staff Sgt. Joshua LeRoi)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket shined above a twinkling Christmas tree like a festive tree topper during last week's holiday lighting ceremony at Vandenberg Space Force Base. SpaceX launched 20 new Starlink internet satellites from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Wednesday (Dec. 4) at 10:05 p.m. EST (7:05 p.m. local California time; 0305 GMT on Dec. 5). The launch coincided with the annual tree lighting ceremony held at the base to ring in the holiday season.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

Technology

NASA tests high-tech software for future Europa mission

(NASA)

Artificial intelligence is being developed to provide a robotic brain for a future NASA mission to land on the icy surface of one of the solar system's ocean moons, such as Europa or Enceladus. The autonomous software is being developed by teams of researchers who are making use of a robotic arm, mimicking that belonging to a lander or rover, and a virtual reality simulation at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Ames Research Center, respectively.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

Search for Life

Cosmic rays may complicate the quest to find life on Mars

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

On Mars, some of the most likely places to look for traces of ancient life may also be the least likely to preserve those traces. This is the result of a recent study that simulated exposing important building blocks of life called "lipids" to cosmic rays pummeling the surface of Mars. And, in short, the exposed material appeared to break down very quickly under the bombardment of radiation from space - and even faster when there was salt mixed in with the sediment, which is the case in many of the places we consider the most likely ancient habitats on Mars.

Full Story: Space (12/10)

Star Trek

Learn how Pike and Number One met at Starfleet Academy

(Pocket Books/Star Trek)

Written by "Star Trek" veteran Una McCormack ("Picard: The Last Best Hope," "Discovery: Wonderlands"), "Strange New Worlds: Asylum" makes for an excellent seasonal read for clear starry nights when our thoughts turn towards the heavens.

Full Story: Space (12/10)