The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter is currently making a series of swings around the solar system so it can get closer to its eventual target, the Sun. While the scientific laboratory travels, it has the opportunity to investigate some other interesting subjects, too, including a comet it recently had a close encounter with.
The James Webb Space Telescope has completed its million-mile journey through space and has safely reached its new home orbiting the sun. The next generation observatory, launched on Christmas day last year, successfully performed an orbital insertion maneuver today to enter orbit at the second sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2.
If you watched Don't Look Up this Christmas, you might be one of many people wondering about how realistic the danger posited by the movie was. Could Earth really be struck by an asteroid? How would scientists react if they did spot an asteroid heading for us?
Here on Earth, we're used to the idea of land ownership. A piece of land belongs to someone, whether that's an individual, a company, or a state, and the owner has rights over what is done with that land. But what about the Moon? Who owns that?
Though it's the center of our solar system, there's a lot we still don't know about the sun. It's difficult to study the sun in detail, not only because it's far away but also because it gives off so much heat and radiation that it's hard for spacecraft to get close to it without being destroyed. But a recently launched mission from the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, Solar Orbiter, will get the best look yet at the sun, including parts of it never seen before. Here's everything you need to know about this exciting mission.
The Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft delivered NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts safely into the Gulf of Mexico at approximately 10:33 PM EST (22:33) near Pensacola, Florida. This splashdown stands as an example of a safe, reliable, cost-effective bit of transportation as executed by NASA's Commercial Crew Program. NASA's SpaceX Crew-3 mission is expected to launch on or after November 10, 2021.
NASA and the ESA have been operating the Hubble Space Telescope for a long time, and they have a long history of sharing special images to celebrate holidays. With Halloween happening this weekend, the ESA has shared that image of a carbon star called CW Leonis. The image below shows the star glowing in dark orange, green, and yellow colors.
The ESA has announced that it is planning to conduct a series of five communications tests between the Mars Express orbiter and China's Zhurong rover currently exploring the surface of Mars. Most rovers and landers sent to Mars lack radios powerful enough to send data directly back to Earth. Instead, they rely on spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet to capture the data using short-range radios and then forward the data using more power for long-range equipment back to Earth.
On October 9, a massive solar storm resulted in a coronal mass ejection (CME) being thrown into space and set on a path towards Earth. When material from the CME arrived at Earth and collided with the magnetosphere, it created some beautiful auroras in parts of the world that don't typically see that phenomenon. A CME is essentially an explosion on the sun that expands into the solar system and speeds up the solar wind.
There has been some controversy surrounding the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of late, with some wanting NASA to change its name. However, NASA has stuck to its name and has now begun to invite the press and other VIPs to witness the launch of the JWST. Currently, the launch is scheduled for December 18, 2021.
BepiColumbo is a joint ESA-JAXA mission that is currently in space conducting operations. Recently, the ESA shared an image of the planet Mercury taken on October 1, 2021. The image was snapped as the BepiColumbo spacecraft flew past Mercury for any gravity assist maneuver.
The ESA has announced it's beginning a study this week that will involve an all-female crew of 20 women. The women will lay in a waterbed for five days in a dry immersion study aiming to re-create the effects of spaceflight on the human body. Study participants lay in a container similar to a bathtub that is covered in a waterproof fabric.