One of the primary objectives of space exploration that often gets overlooked is the intense effort that goes into ensuring Earth microbes don’t contaminate planetary objects, also called forward contamination. This is done to prevent contaminating any potential life that might be present could get killed off my Earth microbes and scientists don’t want to make false discoveries. While space radiation and extreme temperatures often kill off any pesky microbes that hitch a ride on spacecraft, there remains a longstanding knowledge gap regarding whether microbes could survive the lunar polar regions due to its deep craters and varying topography. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/78KlOTn via IFTTT
Japanese researchers got lucky when a comet they wanted to study was found photo-bombing archival images from Japan's Subaru Telescope. The Subaru, with its 8.2 meter mirror, happened to image comet 28P/Neujmin from just the right angle to accurately characterize its surface. Their work is part of the ongoing effort to understand comets and asteroids, why some of them share properties, and what that means for their formation and evolution as Solar System objects. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/lm5eVx7 via IFTTT