Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2017

Japanese scientists are developing a system to capture and remove space debris.

The existence of a planet the size of Earth around the closest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, has been confirmed by an international team of scientists including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE). The results, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal that the planet in question, Proxima b, has a mass of 1.17 Earth masses and is located in the habitable zone of its star, which it orbits in 11.2 days.

This breakthrough was possible thanks to radial velocity measurements of unprecedented precision using ESPRESSO, the Swiss-manufactured spectrograph, the most accurate currently in operation, which is installed on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Proxima b was first detected four years ago by means of an older spectrograph, HARPS, also developed by the Geneva-based team, which measured a low disturbance in the star’s speed, suggesting the presence of a companion.

The ESPRESSO spectrograph has performed radial velocity measurements on the star Proxima Centauri, which is only 4.2 light-years from the sun, with an accuracy of 30 centimetres a second (cm/s), about three times more precision than that obtained with HARPS, the same type of instrument but from the previous generation.

Are you up for the challenge?

Venus is an EXTREME world, and we’re calling on YOU to help us explore it! NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is running a public challenge to develop an obstacle avoidance sensor for a possible future Venus rover: https://go.nasa.gov/36Cj5QE

🏆 1st place prize: $15,000.

Credit–https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17936 NASA.

China’s space program will launch a Mars mission in July, according to its current plans. This will include deploying an orbital probe to study the red planet, and a robotic, remotely-controlled rover for surface exploration. The U.S. has also been planning another robotic rover mission for Mars, and it’s set to take off this summer, too – peak time for an optimal transit from Earth to Mars thanks to their relative orbits around the Sun.

This will be the first rover mission to Mars for China’s space program, and is one of the many ways that it’s aiming to better compete with NASA’s space exploration efforts. NASA has flown four previous Mars rover missions, and its fifth, with an updated rover called ‘Perseverance,’ is set to take place this years with a goal of making a rendezvous with Mars sometime in February 2021.

NASA’s mission also includes an ambitious rock sample return plan, which will include the first powered spacecraft launch from the red planet to bring that back. The U.S. space agency is also sending the first atmospheric aerial vehicle to Mars on this mission, a helicopter drone that will be used for short flights to collect additional data from above the planet’s surface.

The US Space Force has announced that it is looking for a place to establish its new HQ, and is encouraging communities across the US to nominate themselves based on a set of criteria.

The formation of the Sun, the Solar System and the subsequent emergence of life on Earth may be a consequence of a collision between our galaxy, the Milky Way, and a smaller galaxy called Sagittarius, discovered in the 1990s to be orbiting our galactic home.

Astronomers have known that Sagittarius repeatedly smashes through the Milky Way’s disc, as its orbit around the galaxy’s core tightens as a result of gravitational forces. Previous studies suggested that Sagittarius, a so called dwarf galaxy, had had a profound effect on how stars move in the Milky Way. Some even claim that the 10 000 times more massive Milky Way’s trademark spiral structure might be a result of the at least three known crashes with Sagittarius over the past six billion years.

Continue reading “Galactic crash may have triggered solar system formation” »

Mars’ early surface likely resembled a mud stew of water and volcanic-like processes, say researchers.

A large number of mountain cones in Mars’ northern hemisphere are likely the product of ancient mud volcanoes, says a new paper.

At the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, team members are building the Coronagraph Instrument for the spacecraft and contributing to the mission’s science goals.

NASA is naming its next-generation space telescope currently under development, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), in honor of Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, who paved the way for space telescopes focused on the broader universe.

Continue reading “Next-Generation NASA Space Telescope Named for ‘Mother of Hubble’ Nancy Grace Roman” »