Tag: NASA

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NASA will launch an “Armageddon”- style mission to purposely collide with an asteroid’s moon and test “planetary defense”

NASA’s forthcoming mission may look like a scene from a science fiction disaster film. The office declared Sunday that it’s sending spacecraft above the Earth to collide with an asteroid’s moonlet to change the body’s trajectory.

The mission, a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will be the first agency’s utilization of the kinetic impactor technique, in which a large, high-speed spacecraft is sent into an asteroid’s way to change its movement. NASA is set to direct the mission, what it calls “the first test for planetary defense,” on November 24, the day before Thanksgiving, to hit the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, Dimorphos.

The asteroid is around 780 meters across — around 2,559 feet, as indicated by NASA. Its moonlet is around 525 feet, which as indicated by NASA, is “more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth.”

The DART spacecraft will collide with the moonlet almost head-on at around 6.6 kilometers each second, a speed that is quicker than a bullet and sufficiently fast to change the speed of the moonlet by a fraction of 1%, NASA says. However it seems like a little change, this effect will change the orbital period of the moonlet by a few minutes.

DART will be launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, yet it won’t collide with the asteroid’s moon for an additional 10 months. NASA said that it will voyage in space until September 2022, when the Didymos system is within 11 million kilometers of Earth.

The mission is suggestive of the 1998 science fiction action film “Armageddon,” in which the space agency sends a team of civilians to land on an asteroid and explode it before it annihilates Earth. While the essential plan to the film is comparative, notwithstanding, NASA has said that neither Didymos nor Dimorphos represent a danger to Earth. This specific mission, the office says, is with the goal that researchers can work out how compelling DART missions can be.

The distance from Earth that the asteroid and its moonlet will be at the time of the collision is close enough that telescopes will actually want to see what occurs.

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Technology

NASA’s Perseverance rover, at last, grabbed its first Mars rock sample

NASA’s Perseverance rover caught its first sampling of rocky Mars material last week after its first attempt in August strangely turned up void. The new rock sample, about the size of a small cigar, checks off a significant first phase in a more extensive decade-long effort to bring humanity’s first Martian samples back to Earth in pristine condition.

The rover’s successful sample snatch happened last Wednesday at 5:36PM ET, diving into a rock researchers nicknamed “Rochette.” Using a hollow, tube-like drill bit that traps rocky material inside, Perseverance bored a hole a few inches using a rotary-percussive drill installed toward the finish of its seven-foot sampling arm. A twisting mechanism inside the drill bit snapped the rock core off of Rochette and kept it cozy inside a sample tube. To affirm it was protected inside, Perseverance moved the five-jointed sampling arm to get the drill bit front of the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera — one of its essential eyes.

Perseverance, a car-sized science lab on wheels, arrived at Mars’ Jezero Crater in February with a core mission to search for old indications of microbial life and gather many samples for a future Mars robot to recover and send back home.

After the rover’s drill bit caught the rock and researchers visually affirmed a successful sampling, the sampling hand gave the rock tube off to one more mechanism inside Perseverance’s main body for processing. Another camera, the Sample Caching System Camera, snaps photographs of the rock samples before it gets connected to an air-tight container.

The air-tight container will be stored in a mini garage in the rover’s underside until it’s the ideal opportunity for Perseverance to plop the sealed tube back on the surface for collection.

Where Perseverance drops the rock samples is still up to be determined. Someday, a future NASA robot will gather the cylinders from their resting places on a surface and launch them into Mars’ orbit, where one more spacecraft worked by the European Space Agency will catch and carry them the rest of the way home for appearance at some point during the 2030s.

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Technology

NASA uncovers the Moon water exhuming ideas that won $500k

NASA has its sights set on the Moon incredibly, however building up a more permanent presence on the lunar surface will require a variety of new technology. One issue that should be tended to is water; however the Moon is home to icy water reserves, astronauts will require an approach to gather the substance as a useable resource. As it will in general do, NASA offered cash in exchange for ideas from teams around the US — and presently it is back with the winners.

Back in November, NASA reported a new challenge called Break the Ice Lunar Challenge. The space office looked for ideas on new ways for astronauts to exhume assets on the Moon, including the most reproachful of all assets, water. These water holds are caught as frigid in obscurity, cold holes situated at the Moon’s shafts.

The icy regolith (Moon dust) presents a remarkable test contrasted with excavating ice on Earth, not the least of which is because of regolith’s sharp and messy qualities. Past that, the best icy regolith holds on the Moon are situated in pits that are permanently dark, causing visibility issues, in addition to the temperatures are incredibly cold.

In its report on the challenge today, NASA uncovered that an aggregate of 13 teams won a lot of the aggregate $500,000 prize, with the best honor going to Redwire Space in Florida at $125,000. The team introduced a two-rover concept that would include the organization’s L-Rex excavator to assemble the ice, which would be transported and deposited by L-Tran.

Different teams given lesser award amounts incorporate Colorado School of Mines, Austere Engineering, Aurora Robotics, Rocket M, Team AA-Star, and then some. Of the 13 winners, the bottom 10 — who each will get $25,000 — introduced what NASA calls “viable and innovative ideas” that it might discover beneficial in the near future.

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Technology

NASA is effectively looking for intelligent life in the universe and is searching for habitable planets, official says

Intelligent life may exist somewhere else in the universe other than Earth, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an interview Tuesday, and NASA is actively looking for signs.

“If you have a universe that is 13.5 billion years old — it is so big — is there another chance for another Sun and another planet that has an atmosphere like ours? I would say yes, so I think we’re going to get some indication that there’s intelligent life out there,” said Nelson during an interview Tuesday.

In a report on unidentified flying objects released June 25, the U.S. government couldn’t clarify 143 of the 144 cases of UFOs revealed by military planes from 2004 to 2021, as per the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Nelson told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that NASA has been engaged with looking for intelligent life for years, and noticed that the organization is searching for life on the planets in our solar system and somewhere else in the cosmos to decide different Suns that have planets with a habitable atmosphere.

The previous Florida Senator added that part of the inquiry incorporates studying Mars. NASA’s experimental helicopter Ingenuity made its ninth flight on Mars on Monday. Ingenuity flew for almost 3 minutes, going as quick as 5 meters (more than 16 feet) each second, as indicated by a tweet from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

“This particular time, it’s scouting a very sandy region in order to determine should the rover go there and possibly get stuck in the sand, so Ingenuity is just doing amazing things,” Nelson said.

NASA depicted Ingenuity’s most recent trip as “the most nerve-wracking flight since Flight 1.”

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Lockheed Martin and GM companion to foster new moon buggy for NASA astronauts and cargo

Lockheed Martin and General Motors are collaborating to foster another sort of lunar vehicle for NASA to use during its forthcoming Artemis missions to the moon, the organizations reported Wednesday.

“Surface mobility is critical to enable and sustain long-term exploration of the lunar surface. These next-generation rovers will dramatically extend the range of astronauts,” Lockheed Martin executive vice president Rick Ambrose said in a statement.

Recently, NASA gave a notification to organizations that it “requires a human-class rover that will extend the exploration range of” astronauts during missions for the office’s Artemis program. The NASA program, reported by previous President Donald Trump’s administration and proceeded under President Joe Biden, comprises of multiple missions to the moon’s orbit and surface in the years ahead.

NASA’s request for a next-generation lunar vehicle noted it ought to use an variety of cutting-edge technologies, including electric vehicle systems, autonomous driving, and hazardous terrain capabilities.

GM has assembled such a vehicle previously, as the organization was the significant subcontractor that assisted Boeing with making the lunar wandering vehicle that was used during three Apollo missions on the moon.

While NASA’s past wanderer was equipped for arriving at almost driving all over the moon at almost six miles each hour, it traveled under five miles from the Apollo landing site.

Lockheed Martin said its next-generation lunar terrain vehicle is “being designed to traverse significantly farther distances to support the first excursions of the moon’s south pole, where it is cold and dark with more rugged terrain.”

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Technology

NASA’s deferred Moon lander contracts cast question on Artemis timetable

More signs are arising that NASA’s Artemis program probably won’t welcome individuals to the Moon on time. The Verge has discovered that NASA discreetly pushed back the award time period for two lunar lander contracts from late February to April 30th, including the lunar landing system contract including Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics. The space agency said it required more opportunity to assess recommendations and keep a “seamless transition” from the improvement phase, in spite of the fact that it said there was an opportunity it would grant award sooner than late April.

Blue Origin is dealing with its Blue Moon lander, while SpaceX is building up its Starship rocket. Dynetics is developing a lander in a team-up with Sierra Nevada.

The setback doesn’t come as a shock. Congress just gave NASA’s Human Landing System project $850 million in its most recent spending bill versus the $3.2 billion it said was vital for the planned 2024 Moon touchdown. it doesn’t help that NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine left as President Biden got to work, leaving his delegate Steve Jurczyk in his place. The association simply doesn’t have the resources or direction it was anticipating.

Thusly, the chances of NASA making its 2024 Artemis goal are that a lot slimmer. That is likewise limiting any potential changes in needs at NASA under the Biden administration. The new White House has focused a lot of its energy on managing on prompt emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic downturn. It could be hesitant to dedicate a lot (if any) regard for a Moon landing until the nation is in better shape.

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Technology

NASA is getting ready for 7 minutes of absolute fear

At the point when NASA launched its Mars 2020 mission a year ago it was the finish of one chapter and the start of another. The mission, which has been going through space for as far back as a while, is scheduled to show up on the Martian surface on February 18th, and NASA is tallying during the time until that touchdown occurs.

One of the greatest obstacle that actually exists between NASA and an effective Mars 2020 mission is simply the arrival of the rover capsule. The supposed “seven minutes of terror” that NASA frequently talks about with respect to the arrival is basically a seven-minute window where the spacecraft will start its descent and, if all goes as arranged, deliver the most technologically advanced machine ever worked for space investigation to the surface of the planet.

As a result of the distance between Mars and Earth, controlling the spacecraft in realtime is out of the question. Commands would require minutes to make it to their destination, so it’s dependent upon the rocket to represent any variables that could threaten the descent and landing.

On the off chance that the spacecraft is successful, and the landing goes off effortlessly, the potential for new discoveries on Mars is tremendous. The Perseverance wanderer is the most developed piece of hardware ever shipped off Mars, and it will have the option to inform researchers things regarding the Red Planet that have never been concentrated in such a manner previously.

“Perseverance’s refined science instruments won’t only assistance in the hunt for fossilized microbial life, yet additionally extend our insight into Martian topography and its past, present, and future,” Caltech’s Ken Farley, a researcher working on the Mars 2020 mission, said in a proclamation. “Our science team has been busy planning how best to work with what we anticipate will be a firehose of cutting-edge data. That’s the kind of ‘problem’ we are looking forward to.”

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Environment

Nasa shares Chandra X-ray picture of the astonishing supernova

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has shared an amazing picture of a supernova captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope. Nasa shared the picture of the supernova on its Instagram page. Chandra Observatory, as well, has shared the picture of the supernova.

Nasa said the telescope captured a bright source of light at the center of the supernova. Nasa said the wellspring of light at the center of the supernova remnant it captured is a neutron star.

On its Instagram post, Nasa stated, “The bright source at the center of supernova remnant RCW 103 is a neutron star.”

“Matter in a neutron star is packed together so tightly that a sugar-cube-sized amount of neutron star material would weigh more than 1 billion tons – roughly the weight of Mount Everest!”

A few social media clients shared their thoughts on the supernova picture. While some said the picture was beautiful, some called it intriguing.

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NASA’s new space telescope set to disentangle privileged insights of the Big Bang

The Big Bang theory is a cosmological model portraying how our current, perceptible universe became. Yet, there is still a lot to find out about the idea, especially with regards to what happened in those early microseconds after the big bang itself.

To do as such, the space organization has planned a space telescope that will have the option to test the universe for proof of those earliest minutes.

Right now bearing the incredibly cool moniker SPHEREx (another way to say “Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer”) NASA has reported it’s moving along pleasantly with its arrangement to build the telescope.

Next steps: Begin work on a last design and begin to construct the thing, with the end goal of launching somewhere in the range of 2024 and 2025.

The SPHEREx space telescope is required to be the size of “subcompact car” and, as indicated by a new NASA release, will “map the entire sky four times, creating a massive database of stars, galaxies, nebulas (clouds of gas and dust in space), and many other celestial objects.”

In the event that all goes to design, SPHEREx will be the very first NASA mission to make a “full-sky spectroscopy map in near-infrared,” noticing an aggregate of 102 close infrared colors.

“That’s like going from black-and-white images to color” explained Allen Farrington, project manager of SPHEREx.

The first priority of SPHEREx is to look for proof of something NASA says “might have happened less than a billionth of a billionth of a second after the big bang.”

By planning billions of galaxies across the universe NASA would like to discover statistical patterns that can help clarify what happened following the big bang, when the universe quickly extended. The recently made map will likewise help look for water ice and frozen organic molecules around recently forming stars.

SPHEREx is likewise wanting to find more about galaxy formation and might have the option to find how a portion of the first galaxies made stars.

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Technology

NASA discloses 30 new Hubble telescope space pictures of astronomical miracles

The Hubble Space Telescope has been a science juggernaut since it launched in 1990, but on the other hand, it’s given us an eye-opening (as well as mind- and heart-opening) window on the universe.

NASA is as yet busy celebrating the telescope’s life span, and the most recent round of confetti is 30 new picture increases covered by the Caldwell catalog. The catalog is a list of space objects that can be spotted by amateur astronomers.

The new pictures cover sparkling star bunches, ghostly nebulae and glorious galaxies.

“These images have been taken by Hubble throughout its career and used for scientific research or for engineering tests, but NASA had not fully processed the images for public release until now,” the space agency said in a statement on Friday.

The telescope is a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency.

There are 109 objects in the Caldwell catalog and Hubble has now gathered pictures of 87 of them.