INFORMATION

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has exceeded everyone’s expectations, recently completing its 51st flight when it was supposed to fly just a few times as a demonstration mission. But flights 50 and 51 almost didn’t happen. In a recent blog post , Travis Brown, Chief Engineer for Ingenuity shared how the team lost contact with the tiny rotorcraft for six excruciating days. At first, they were not overly concerned when communications ceased from the helicopter on Sol 755. About a year ago, a brief two-day communication glitch occurred because Ingenuity experienced insufficient battery charge as night fell at the start of the Martian winter. This reduced voltage reset the mission clock, causing the helicopter’s system to be out of sync with Perseverance rover. While the team quickly figured out the issue, because of Ingenuity’s off-the shelf batteries, they expected this issue could happen again. But now, this time was different. “In more than 700 sols operating the helicopter on...

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , a pair of researchers from the University of Florida (UF) examine orbital eccentricities for exoplanets orbiting red dwarf (M dwarf) stars and determined that one-third of them—which encompass hundreds of millions throughout the Milky Way—could exist within their star’s habitable zone (HZ) , which is that approximate distance from their star where liquid water can exist on the surface. The researchers determined the remaining two-thirds of exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs are too hot for liquid water to exist on their surfaces due to tidal extremes, resulting in a sterilization of the planetary surface. Artist’s illustration of a young red dwarf star with three exoplanets orbiting around it. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) “I think this result is really important for the next decade of exoplanet research, because eyes are shifting toward this population of stars,” said Sheila Sagear , who is a PhD stude...

The habitable zone is the region around a star where planets can maintain liquid water on their surface. It’s axiomatic that planets with liquid water are the best places to look for life, and astronomers focus their search on that zone. As far as we can tell, no water equals no life . But new research suggests another delineation in solar systems that could influence habitability: The Soot Line. Even though Earth is 2/3 covered in oceans, it’s still considered a water-poor planet. Our planet is only about 0.1% water by mass. But, obviously, that water is critical for life. Cells can’t perform their functions without water. But carbon is critical for life, too, and Earth life is called carbon-based life . Carbon is unique in its ability to form diverse compounds, and to form polymers at Earth temperatures. It’s the second-most abundant element in the human body, after oxygen. This illustration helps show how critical carbon is to all life. Here on Earth, cell membranes are compo...

The James Webb Space Telescope has observed a huge water vapor plume emanating from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Astronomers say the plume reaches nearly 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) into space, which is about the equivalent distance as going from Ireland to Japan. This is the largest plume ever detected at Enceladus. Using the sensitive NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument onboard JWST, the researchers were searching for organic compounds in order to characterize the composition and structure of the diffuse plumes. However, their observations revealed only emissions of water. But this giant plume was much larger than expected.    Enceladus itself is just 505 km (314 miles) across, meaning the plume is 40 times as big. We’ve known about the water plumes – which are fueled by a massive subsurface ocean — since shortly after Cassini began studying Enceladus in 2005. “These first observations with JWST (only a few minutes of integration time) demonstrate the power o...

If you’ve ever played Kerbal Space Program , you know how difficult it can be to get your spacecraft into the orbit you want. It’s even more difficult in real life. This is why it’s pretty impressive to see a proposal to study all of Saturn’s large inner moons in one go. At a broad level, orbits are pretty simple. Planets and moons are basically ellipses. Once set into motion, spacecraft generally follow an elliptical or parabolic path, so it’s just a matter of lining up your spacecraft’s orbit with your destination and point of origin. You can do the calculations by hand if you know the math. Several early science fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein and Hal Clement did just that to ensure their space-travel stories were accurate. But these types of simple calculations only determine fly-by paths, and they don’t take into account energy-saving tricks such as gravitational slingshots. The energy demands of getting a spacecraft to the outer solar system are so high that even the e...

Enigmatic North Korea may attempt to put a satellite in orbit, as early as this week. Satellite spotters worldwide may have a new clandestine target to hunt for in orbit soon. The North Korean government announced possible plans this week to field another satellite into orbit by mid-July. This comes after a public visit by leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju-Ae to a DPRK National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) aerospace facility earlier this month. Kim “approved the future action plan of the preparatory committee,” according the Korean Central News Agency, and said that the satellite was “an urgent requirement of the prevailing security environment of the country.” Kim Jong Un tours the NADA satellite facility. Credit: KCNA This would suggest the payload in question is a military reconnaissance or spy satellite. Recent Navigational Warnings published alerting Japan and surrounding nations to a launch from the Sohae Space Center site out southward across the Y...

As NASA prepares to return astronauts to the Moon with Artemis III, China is ramping up its efforts for a crewed lunar landing, targeting earlier than 2030. Lin Xiqiang, the deputy director of China’s Manned Space Agency announced that the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) is preparing for a “short stay on the lunar surface and human-robotic joint exploration.” Lin Xiqiang made the announcement at a science conference, adding that there will be several robotic missions to the Moon planned before then, with more sample returns and tests of technology to enable a sustained human presence on the Moon. Artemis III is currently scheduled for launch in December 2025, and would be the second crewed Artemis mission and the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972. “We have a complete near-Earth human space station and human round-trip transportation system,” complemented by a process for selecting, training and supporting new astronauts, Lin Xiqiang said, accordi...

As Artemis II gets ready to launch in November 2024, NASA recently announced it is pursuing contract proposals from private companies for the development of a next-generation Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to be used for crewed missions starting with Artemis V, which is currently scheduled for 2029. NASA has set a due date for the proposals of July 10, 2023, at 1:30pm Central Time, with the announcement for rewarded contracts to occur in November 2023. “We want to leverage industry’s knowledge and innovation, combined with NASA’s history of successfully operating rovers, to make the best possible surface rover for our astronaut crews and scientific researchers,” Lara Kearney, who is the manager of NASA’s Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said in the statement. NASA envisions the LTV as a hybrid rover capable of crewed and uncrewed operations, which will allow for continuous science exploration on the lunar surface. For crewe...

Launched on April 14, 2023, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice; formerly known as JUICE) spacecraft has finally completed the unfurling of its solar panel arrays and plethora of booms, probes, and antennae while en route to the solar system’s largest planet. However, Juice’s first six weeks in space haven’t been so smooth, as its Radar for Ice Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna became stuck and unable to deploy, but the engineers successfully deployed RIME after working the problem for over a month. The RIME unit is deemed as “mission critical” since its purpose is to map underneath the icy crusts of Jupiter’s three icy worlds: Europa , Ganymede , and Callisto . “It’s been an exhausting but very exciting six weeks,” said Angela Dietz , who is the deputy spacecraft operations manager for the Juice mission. “We have faced and overcome various challenges to get Juice into the right shape for getting the best science out of its trip to Jupiter.” The...

In a recent study published in National Science Review , a team of researchers led by the China University of Geosciences discuss direct evidence of an ancient ocean and its shoreline that existed in the northern hemisphere of Mars during the Hesperian Period, or more than 3 billion years ago. This finding is based on data collected by the China National Space Agency’s (CNSA) Zhurong rover in the Vastitas Borealis Formation (VBF), which lies within southern Utopia Planitia on Mars. The Zhurong rover landed in Utopia Planitia on May 15, 2021, after being ferried across the void from Earth to Mars by the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which is still active around the Red Planet. Zhurong was initially designed for a mission duration of 90 sols (93 Earth days) and has far exceeded that timeline. However, Zhurong entered hibernation mode in May 2022 (Sol 347) to protect itself during the harsh Martian winter. While it was scheduled to resume communications with the CNSA in December 2022, it did ...

When two black holes collide, they don’t smash into each other the way two stars might. A black hole is an intensely curved region of space that can be described by only its mass, rotation, and electric charge, so two black holes release violent gravitational ripples as merge into a single black hole. The new black hole continues to emit gravitational waves until it settles down into a simple rotating black hole. That settling down period is known as the ring down, and its pattern holds clues to some of the deepest mysteries of gravitational physics. Gravitational wave observatories such as the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have mostly focused on the inspiral period of black hole mergers. This is the period where the two black holes orbit ever closer to each other, creating a rhythmic stream of strong gravitational waves. From this astronomers can determine the mass and rotation of the original black holes, as well as the mass and rotation of the merged b...