Medicine & TechnologyWhile NASA’s Curiosity Rover revealed a possible location for reoccurring lakes on the surface of the red planet last week, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is finding even larger discoveries from its vantage point in the sky. Capturing new images with its HiRISE camera, one of six onboard instruments used by the orbiter, Reconnaissance has found evidence of one of the largest lava mounds found to date. And while it looks like a crispy pie pulled right from the oven, researchers say that the 1.2-mile wide circle of Martian crust is composed of iron-rich metamorphic rock, created thousands of years ago in a series of lava flows.
Despite having an international crew, and orbiting in a laboratory 260 miles above the surface of the Earth, astronauts aboard the International Space Station are celebrating today’s turkey day with a few of their zero-g versions of traditional Thanksgiving classics—and they’re even sharing what their thankful for with the rest of the world.
Late Sunday morning, Nov. 23, three new replacements for Expedition 42 boarded the International Space Station, bringing the orbiting space lab’s population back to full strength. But, aside from bringing some fresh blood to the research conducted on the orbiting spacecraft, and new perspectives for how life in space should be conducted on the space station, the three new astronauts brought a bit of home back with them. And it’s Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti’s 44-pound carry-on that has the International Space Station salivating at the taste of Italy she brought aboard.
Rounding out the crew of six, who have been short-staffed since the return of three members earlier this summer, three new replacements for Expedition 42 aboard the International Space Station arrived late Sunday, Nov. 23, bringing the orbiting space lab’s population back to full strength.
In a time when space missions take the cover pages of nearly every news source, and the headlines pull readers in, the general public would be shocked to learn that many government space agencies are struggling to keep their satellites and spacecrafts up in the sky. And knowing the financial struggle all too well, a group of British researchers from the Lunar Mission Trust, a non-profit think-tank for astronomers and space buffs alike, have decided to crowd-fund their newest adventure to the moon. And with only 24 days left to go, many are questioning whether the team will be able to reach their lofty goals.
For centuries now, since the dawn of man, early scientists have sought out remnants of space rock and interstellar interactions here on Earth. Legends of moon stones and pieces of stars have abounded in nearly every culture, but now that astronomers have the technology to leave their own mark on distant planets and satellites, one company is looking to leave a piece of Earth on our very own moon. If all goes according to plan, and the company can be funded by interested parties, a decade from now a spacecraft from the Lunar Mission One will land on the South Pole/Aitken Basin of the moon and create a new history for mankind.
Nearly 50 years ago, the world was in a similar climate as it is today. International affairs were rocky at best, and former enemies on the global stage took to space as they would a battlefield. Nations like the U.S. and Soviet Russia engaged in a war of attrition, one that luckily never led to actual battle; but rather led to a space race the United States won first.
Decades later, and a Russian space mission may just kick off yet another space race much closer to home. With news of fallen missiles creating craters in northern Siberia, and secret space missions being launched from the Russian side of the world, sky gazers have kept their eyes peeled in recent months for anything peculiar up in the sky. But now six months after researchers say that a Russian object was put into orbit around the Earth, astronomers fear that Russia’s spacecraft may be conducting a test run for anti-satellite warfare.
It’s a $1.62 billion mission who’s fighting against the clock. For more than a decade now, researchers have been hoping that the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta Mission would give them a better understand and an unseen view of what lies beneath the surface of a comet. And now that they’re there, they fear that time is not on their side.
It’s been a 310 million mile journey from the Earth to its destination Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, so what does the famed Philae lander probe do once it’s made history by being the first to touch down on the surface of a speeding comet? The answer may surprise you.
In a week when all eyes are set to space, and all questions in the social sphere revolve around the topic of comets, India’s Space Agency ISRO doesn’t want to be counted out of the mix. And while they may not be putting a lander on a speeding comet, or orbiting one like Europe’s space agency (the ESA), ISRO was able to catch its own glimpse of one last month and has taken to the web with a new view of a cosmic passerby.
Earlier last month, on Oct. 19, researchers from the world’s top space agencies were able to catch a glimpse at one of the rarest sights in space. Coming from the outer Oort Cloud, at the very edge of our solar system, young comet Siding Spring passed by Mars rather closely on its first orbit around the sun; giving Mars orbiters a show and quite a scare. But as it turns out new data collected from NASA’s satellites on the night of the event show that the best view may have in fact been from the red planet itself.
It’s been a mission ten years in the making, and after a final green light from mission control tonight, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta Mission will deploy its handy little lander named “Philae” onto the surface of the far off Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko it met up with earlier this summer.
There are creationist theories, Big Bang theories, and even more temporarily defined hypotheses about how the planets of our solar system came to be, but modern research has yet to find conclusive empirical evidence to show us exactly how our solar system’s birth happened, 4.5 billion years ago. That is, until now!
Nearly every Sci-Fi film about deep space has warned about the perils of coming up against a black hole. And if there’s anything we’ve learned, or that astronomy has taught us, it’s that these supermassive vortex’s have quite a strong pull—something most planets and stars cannot bare to go through. But as it so happens, it turns out that cosmic coupling may be one solution for solar systems looking to avoid certain death.