New Celestial Census: 17 Billion Earth-sized Worlds Out There!
At least one in six stars has an Earth-sized planet – that’s the word from Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Fressin and his colleagues have been sifting through data gleaned by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. A new analysis of...Curiosity’s “Bit” of News: Get the Drill?
A new milestone for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is at hand – well, within robotic arm’s reach. Possible first targets for use of Curiosity’s hammering drill are being eyed. The drill will collect powdered samples from the interior of rocks for analysis by instruments...Asteroid Vesta: Spacecraft Imagery Unveils its Eventful Past
Data gleaned by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft during a year-long survey of asteroid Vesta have shown that impacting small asteroids delivered dark, carbonaceous material to the protoplanet. These huge impacts not only altered Vesta’s shape, but also its surface composition....A User’s Guide to the Moon
Now available from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) e-book webpage is the seminal book – The Lunar Sourcebook: A User’s Guide to the Moon. This is a treasure-trove of a volume, including sections on: Return to the Moon; Current Understanding of the Moon: A Base...Free Read! NASA Books Look Back, Gaze into the Future
NASA has issued an impressive volume, just right for reading as the space agency encounters a new year. NASA at 50: Interviews with NASA’s Senior Leadership is edited by Rebecca Wright, Sandra Johnson, and Steven J. Dick. The 50th anniversary of NASA on 1...NEXT in Propulsion!
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft that explored asteroid Vesta and is now en route to space rock Ceres is being propelled by ion thrust. Ion engines use electric fields instead of chemical reactions. Ion engines tend to be much less powerful, but they are so efficient, they can...Free Downloads! Looking Up at Hubble, James Webb Space Telescopes
Here are two celestial stocking stuffers for the mind and for those still shopping – just in time for the holidays and new year! NASA has issued two new e-books, one on the Hubble Space Telescope, the other on the still-to-be-launched, next-generation space...Two Mars Rovers: Armed for Action!
At two distant locations on Mars, NASA rovers are “strong arming” the planet. The Curiosity rover is busy working with its robot arm to help researchers choose a rock to drill within the shallow depression named “Yellowknife Bay”. Meanwhile, the Opportunity rover is...NASA Report: Commercial Crew Progress Continues
A bi-monthly newsletter of accomplishments, progress, and happenings in NASA’s commercial crew and cargo development programs is available from the Commercial Spaceflight Development Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Four months into the Commercial...Space Talk
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#NASA estimates that a human mission to Mars could take months or years with current propulsion technologies. To accelerate this timeline, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are exploring nuclear thermal propulsion.
Learn more: https://bit.ly/4f8zDlE
#ICYMI, check out the latest recap of space exploration, science and policy news from CDSE's Deep Space Extra newsletter.
Read it here: https://exploredeepspace.com/news/deep-space-extra-39-2024-09-30/
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.@NASA_Langley is testing the Lightweight Surface Manipulation System AutoNomy capabilities Development for Surface Operations (LANDO), a robotic arm designed to lift payloads and place them on the #lunar surface.
Read more: https://bit.ly/3NbFYAO
📷: NASA/David C. Bowman
#ICYMI, check out the latest recap of space exploration, science and policy news from CDSE's Deep Space Extra newsletter.
Read it here: https://exploredeepspace.com/news/deep-space-extra-38-2024-09-23/
Sign up to stay in the know. #ExploreDeepSpace
