Elon Musk’s aerospace firm SpaceX has been awarded a $178 million (£129 million) contract for NASA’s first mission to Europa, Jupiter’s fourth largest moon. SpaceX will provide ‘launch services’ for the Europa Clipper mission, which is due to blast off in October 2024 to study Europa through a series of fly-bys, NASA said. The spacecraft will … Read more
NASA’s Perseverance rover has officially started its search for ancient life on Mars and the US space agency will share the initial findings on Wednesday. According to a NASA statement, the $2.7 billion rover is using its seven-foot mechanical arm to analyze Martian rocks with X-rays and ultraviolet light. This allows the rover to ‘zoom … Read more
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has made its EIGHTH successful flight on the Red Planet NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter completed its eighth successful flight on Mars The 4-pound helicopter flew 525 feet (160meters) for 77.4 seconds. It landed roughly 440 feet (133.5m) away from Perseverance It captures its own shadow, 14 days after its seventh flight By Chris … Read more
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found a galaxy with a ‘LOPSIDED’ appearance because it’s being stretched and twisted by a neighboring star system The Hubble Space Telescope found galaxy NGC 2276 is being twisted by a neighboring galaxy Because of gravity, NGC 2300 is impacting NGC 22275 and causing it to ‘strangely lopsided appearance,’ pulling its outer edges … Read more
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has survived its sixth flight on the Red Planet, but not everyone went to plan, with some ‘unexpected motion’ in the final few feet. This motion was from an ‘image processing issue’ but the 4lb copter ‘muscled through’ the final 213ft of its 703ft flight over the Martian surface, NASA JPL … Read more
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is going to attempt a sixth flight on Mars next week, reaching speeds of up to nine miles per hour and flying for over two minutes. This will be the first flight as part of the ‘operations demonstration phase’ that includes helping the Perseverance rover in its mission to find ancient signs … Read more
NASA’s Artemis mission to send the first woman and next man to the moon by 2024 could be at risk due to extreme space weather, solar forecasters have predicted. Scientists from the University of Reading looked back over 150 years of space weather data to find patterns in the timings of the most extreme events. … Read more
NASA’s Perseverance rover has switched from photographing the Ingenuity helicopter’s test flights, to searching for signs of long gone Martian life. The US space agency confirmed that the SUV-sized rover has started to test the ancient lakebed in the Jezero crater by focusing its science instruments on rocks. A camera called WATSON on the end … Read more
NASA has unfolded the giant mirror of its James Webb Space Telescope ‘like a piece of origami artwork’ one last time ahead of its launch to space in October. The orbiting observatory has been designed as a successor to the highly successful Hubble space telescope and can see from the near ultraviolet to the near … Read more
The Kepler mission has spotted thousands of exoplanets since 2014, with 30 planets less than twice the size of Earth now known to orbit within the habitable zones of their stars. Launched from Cape Canaveral on March 7th 2009, the Kepler telescope has helped in the search for planets outside of the solar system. It … Read more