Elon Musk recently announced SpaceX’s plans to send a spacecraft to the surface of Mars by 2018. It’s never been easier to die on Mars.
By: Fraser Cain. Support Universe Today on Patreon
Fantastic success story for the astronomy community of China, congratulations!
This is a picture from the Curiosity Rover on Mars showing Earth from the Perspective of Mars. You are literally looking at your home from the Perspective of another planet. Epic times indeed
That’s tonight fyi
NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly returns to Earth Tuesday night after spending almost a year in space.
But his 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) haven’t been all fun and games.
Our bodies evolved on Earth, so they’re not built for weightlessness — which is exactly why NASA plans to use Kelly to study the long-term effects of spaceflight the human body.
According to new research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, scientists are getting even more indicators that life once existed on Mars. The latest proof? Carbonates found in 3.8 billion-year-old rock in the Huygens basin.
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The Soul Nebula Pictured, bright massive stars near the center of W5, the Soul Nebula, are exploding and emitting ionizing light and energetic winds. The outward-moving light and gas push away and evaporate much surrounding gas and dust, but leave pillars of gas behind dense protective knots. Inside these knots, though, stars also form. The featured image highlights the inner sanctum of W5, an arena spanning about 1,000 light years that is rich in star forming pillars. The Soul Nebula, also cataloged as IC 1848, lies about 6,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Queen of Aethopia (Cassiopeia). Likely, in few hundred million years, only a cluster of the resulting stars will remain. Then, these stars will drift apart. (APOD/NASA)
Image Credit: José Jiménez Priego (Astromet)
Scientists invented fabric that makes electricity from motion and sunlight. To create the fabric, researchers at Georgia Tech wove together solar cell fibers with materials that generate power from movement. It could be used in “tents, curtains, or wearable garments,” meaning we’d virtually never be without power. Source
1. Batten Down the Hatches
Good news for future astronauts: scientists are closer to being able to predict when global dust storms will strike the Red Planet. The winds there don’t carry nearly the same force that was shown in the movie “The Martian,” but the dust lofted by storms can still wreak havoc on people and machines, as well as reduce available solar energy. Recent studies indicate a big storm may be brewing during the next few months.
+ Get the full forecast
Our Opportunity Mars rover will drive down an ancient gully that may have been carved by liquid water. Several spacecraft at Mars have observed such channels from a distance, but this will be the first up-close exploration. Opportunity will also, for the first time, enter the interior of Endeavour Crater, where it has worked for the last five years. All this is part of a two-year extended mission that began Oct. 1, the latest in a series of extensions going back to the end of Opportunity’s prime mission in April 2004. Opportunity landed on Mars in January of that year, on a mission planned to last 90 Martian days (92.4 Earth days). More than 12 Earth years later, it’s still rolling.
+ Follow along + See other recent pictures from Endeavour Crater
Opportunity isn’t the only NASA Mars rover getting a mission extension. On the other side of the planet, the Curiosity rover is driving and collecting samples amid some of the most scenic landscapes ever visited on Mars. Curiosity’s two-year mission extension also began Oct. 1. It’s driving toward uphill destinations, including a ridge capped with material rich in the iron-oxide mineral hematite, about a mile-and-a-half (two-and-a-half kilometers) ahead. Beyond that, there’s an exposure of clay-rich bedrock. These are key exploration sites on lower Mount Sharp, which is a layered, Mount-Rainier-size mound where Curiosity is investigating evidence of ancient, water-rich environments that contrast with the harsh, dry conditions on the surface of Mars today.
+ Learn more
Meanwhile, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter continues its watch on the Red Planet from above. The mission team has just released a massive new collection of super-high-resolution images of the Martian surface.
+ Take a look
In the year 2020, Opportunity and Curiosity will be joined by a new mobile laboratory on Mars. In the past week, we tested new “eyes” for that mission. The Mars 2020 rover’s Lander Vision System helped guide the rocket to a precise landing at a predesignated target. The system can direct the craft toward a safe landing at its primary target site or divert touchdown toward better terrain if there are hazards in the approaching target area.
+ Get details
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this website pisses me off, everyones always like “space is so cool!” not its not, space is bullshit and i hate everything about it, i genuinely just saw the phrase “a black hole with a mass two billion times the mass of the sun” im so pissed off, shut the fuck up, dont patronise me scientists you know i dont know what the fuck that means, my sad little brain cant comprehend the mass of one sun let alone two fucking billion, i cant even count past 10 without getting confused and youre out here talking about the mass of two billion fucking suns, shut the hell up. and dont even get me started about black holes or the expansion of the universe because thats another two seperate rants entierly. oh and apparently theres a planet made of ice except the ice is also on fire??? yeah sure fucking thing, scientists. and this is just the shit i know about. i purposely dont research space because it pisses me off so much, god knows what other fucking bullshit exists out there that ive yet to read a fucking wikipedia article about. i dont think space is real, literally everything about space is so fucking fake, this is just some elaborate fucking practicle joke. two billion times the mass of the sun, fuck you