Medicine & TechnologyThe European Space Agency wants to focus more on an installment of a Moon village to test out outer space living conditions before sending manned missions to Mars and beyond.
What would you pack for the 390 million mile trip to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa? Last year, NASA posed that question to a bevy of scientists and after whittling down the final 33 proposals, they have decided on nine items that will rocket aboard the Europa Clipper, which is set to blast off sometime after 2020.
The NASA probe known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has moved closer to the moon than it ever has before, and it could set the stage for a new round of discoveries about the body that faithfully lights the night sky here on Earth each and every night.
While prospecting and mining on the moon or on asteroids is probably a couple of decades away from becoming reality, according to a NASA scientist speaking at a symposium on planetary and terrestrial mining, oversight will be needed by a body much like the United Nations.
In July, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make its closest pass of Pluto, giving us a closer look at a body living in a little known region of our solar system. While it still has millions of miles left to go, New Horizons still has a treat for everyone as it has taken the first ever color image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.
For years scientists have struggled to determine the origin of our Moon that lights the night sky faithfully every single night. Now, many believe that the moon may have been formed by a collision between the Earth and another object that happened to be strikingly similar in composition to our own planet.
Lava tubes that are large enough to contain entire cities are now believed to exist on the moon, and scientists believe that they could one day provide shelter from the cosmic radiation associated with space exploration.
It’s the start to the spring today, and with the vernal equinox came a celestial event unlike those in common occurrence. But while flocks of sky-watchers and astronomers ventured north into the Arctic, where a total solar eclipse would be visible for the last time until 2026 in continental Europe, many were left disappointed at the less than “thrilling” display.
A rather rare occurrence, happening once every year or two, a total eclipse of the sun is a pretty big deal in the sky-watching community. Not only is it special because the sun’s disk entirely covered by the moon, but also because it’s a cosmic occurrence right in our back yard. But for those not living in the Arctic or on the Faroe Islands archipelago between Norway and Iceland, tonights events may be a little hard to see.
If life can exist in these types of conditions here on Earth, the possibility that it also exists elsewhere in our solar system increases dramatically. For instance, what could lie beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa or perhaps Saturn's moon Enceladus?
In a new study published this week by researchers from Cornell University, the team of researchers has modeled a new methane-based life form that can metabolize and reproduce, similar to the oxygen-based life forms here on Earth. And more than that, the researchers say that these life forms could flourish in the harsh, cold environment of Saturn's moon, Titan. Titan's surface is filled with seas of liquid methane that researchers believe could harbor these methane-based cells.
Beneath the glaring surface and choppy waves, many secrets are hidden here in the oceans of Earth. The vast depths hide species unknown to men, lost treasures at the seafloor and perhaps even a cryptid or two. And while terrestrial studies of planets may have been interesting in the 20th century, space agencies are looking to aquatic surveys which may one day reveal the origins of life even farther out in space.
As NASA researchers from the Goddard Space Flight Center revealed this week what lies on the dark side of the moon, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC reveals that space artifacts from that region of the moon may have been hiding here on Earth since the return of Apollo 11. In what appears to be yet another giant leap in the Apollo 11 mission, it turns out that the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, also brought home with him a bag full of keepsakes from his adventure. And they were hidden in his cupboard for more than 40 years.
The recent full moon isn’t the only lunar news to come out of the woodworks this week. It appears that its hidden face is also making headlines here on Earth too. Though historically shrouded in mystery, even with NASA astronauts and other space agencies touching down on the surface of the moon, it appears that researchers are now able to reveal what lies on the “dark side” of the moon thanks to five years of mapping data collected courtesy of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.