Category: Nasa

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NASA dropped a space exploration robot into Cape Cod’s waters to reach the darkest unknowns

sudshr47 March 1, 2019

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When the Orpheus drone emerged from the waters off of Cape Cod in September 2018, deep sea biologist Tim Shank felt relieved. Four and a half years earlier, Shank, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), had sent a state-of-the-art exploration craft to crushing ocean depths — but the vehicle never returned.  

Only shattered pieces of plastic drifted back up to the surface world.

This time, the new exploration robot Orpheus passed its first test: The machine dove alone into the darkened sea for an hour, without any human control. Critically, the drone came back. Enthusiastic about Orpheus’ return, Shank said he fired off an email to his ocean exploration colleague, the filmmaker and deep sea explorer James Cameron. Read more…

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SpaceX gets NASA’s approval to test launch Crew Dragon

sudshr47 February 26, 2019

In a joint press conference, NASA and SpaceX officials said that SpaceX has been approved to conduct the first orbital launch of the Crew Dragon. The launch could come as early as March 2, and would be the last and most important hurdle to cross before SpaceX can send actual human astronauts to the International […]

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Neptune’s smallest moon may have been created by comets

sudshr47 February 21, 2019

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We’re all made of star stuff, but some things in the universe are created by comets.

Neptune’s recently discovered and smallest moon, Hippocamp, has been confirmed and observed in detail by the Hubble Space Telescope according to new research published in Nature on Wednesday.

Named Hippocamp for the half-horse, half-fish creature from Greek mythology — all of Neptune’s moons are named for Greek and Roman mythological figures — it’s the smallest of the planet’s seven inner moons, with a diameter of approximately 20-21 miles (34 kilometres).  Read more…

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NASA posts image of ghostly blue objects, deep in the cosmos

sudshr47 February 17, 2019

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When a star is born, a chaotic light show ensues. 

NASA’s long-lived Hubble Space Telescope captured vivid bright clumps moving through the cosmos at some 1,000 light years from Earth. The space agency called these objects clear “smoking gun” evidence of a newly formed star — as new stars blast colossal amounts of energy-rich matter into space, known as plasma. 

Seen as the vivid blue, ephemeral clumps in the top center of the new image below, these are telltale signs of an energy-rich gas, or plasma, colliding with a huge collection of dust and gas in deep space.

As NASA says, these blue masses are transient creations in the cosmos, as “they disappear into nothingness within a few tens of thousands of years.” Read more…

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HyperSciences wants to ‘gamechange’ spaceflight with hypersonic drilling tech

sudshr47 February 13, 2019

It’s no coincidence that Elon Musk wants to both tunnel down into and soar above the Earth. If you ask the team at HyperSciences, the best way to get to space is to flip drilling technology upside down and point it at the sky. In the process, that would mean ditching the large, expensive fuel […]

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Opportunity Mars Rover goes to its last rest after extraordinary 14-year mission

sudshr47 February 13, 2019

Opportunity, one of two rovers sent to Mars in 2004, is officially offline for good, NASA and JPL officials announced today at a special press conference. “I declare the Opportunity mission as complete, and with it the Mars Exploration Rover mission as complete,” said NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen.

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The Opportunity rover is dead

sudshr47 February 13, 2019

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The Opportunity rover is dead, at age 15. 

After spending over 5,000 Martian days rumbling through the inhospitable red desert planet, NASA acknowledged on Wednesday that its sun-powered exploration rover hasn’t responded to over 600 attempts at contact since June 2018, and is presumed dead. 

“I’m standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude to declare the Opportunity mission as complete,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Deprived of sunlight by a dust storm the size of North America, Opportunity came to rest in a place known as “Perseverance Valley,” which sits on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor crater. It is here that the 400-pound machine, built by NASA engineers in Southern California, will now spend millennia getting blanketed in red dust, for the Martian winds don’t ever stop blowing. Its batteries, completely bereft of power, will not turn on again. Read more…

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Earth is greener than it was 20 years ago, but not why you think

sudshr47 February 12, 2019

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Two NASA satellites have watched Earth grow greener over the last 20 years — in large part because China is hellbent on planting millions of trees. 

Earth’s greening — meaning the increase in areas covered by green leaves — has made the greatest gains in China and India since the mid-1990s. “The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries,” NASA wrote on Tuesday as it released maps of the planet-wide changes. 

China kickstarted its tree-planting mobilizations in the 1990s to combat erosion, climate change, and air pollution. This dedicated planting — sometimes done by soldiers — equated to over 40 percent of China’s greening, so far. Read more…

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