December 12th, 2019
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NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars is now performing Sol 2613 duties. “Curiosity is approaching another unconformity—or maybe it is a distant part of the same one. A large sloping surface called Greenheugh pediment looms ahead, past Western Butte,” reports Roger Wiens, a geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. “Part of the exploration […]
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2610 tasks. Reports Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University in the U.K., Curiosity’s rich workspace includes bedrock, pebbly areas and a brighter float rock of a kind which has been observed frequently in the vicinity. “Thus, lots of variety…and a three-sol plan to fill.” […]
China’s space exploration future includes paving the way for a human mission to the Moon, and carrying out an upcoming, aggressive robotic investigation of Mars. James Head of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, recently provided an overview titled “Space Exploration in China: The Rise of […]
A comprehensive and easy to follow visual guide of minerals that have been reported in lunar samples is now available. One of the aims of making this book freely available to the worldwide community is to support the research of current and future generations of planetary mineralogists, reports Andy Tindle and Mahesh Anand. Anand is […]
A symbolic event on the Moon is being proposed, timed for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, either in 2024 in Paris (France) or in 2026 in Milan-Cortina (Italy). The Moon Village Association (MVA) discussed the concept during the 3rd Moon Village Workshop and Symposium held December 5-8 in Japan. “This proposition is considered […]
The Moon’s farside is an attention grabber…for many reasons. For good measure, enter the Farside Array for Radio Science Investigations of the Dark ages and Exoplanets, shortened to enlightened shorthand: FARSIDE. This concept is to place a low radio frequency interferometric array on the farside of the Moon, blueprinted by Jack Burns of the University […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2606 tasks. The Mars robot’s science team recently faced some tough decisions reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The geologists had to choose between investigating a plethora of interesting rock targets in the workspace…or limit the […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now closing out Sol 2604 duties. Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports on the robot’s activities under a 2-sol plan that involved working the rover’s robotic arm and also a drive. Use of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer […]
India’s Vikram lunar lander crash site has been found. Its impact point and debris field imaged after the craft augured into the Moon on September 7th India time (September 6 in the United States). Spotting the crash site was NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and the craft’s high-powered LROC system. The Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander […]
China’s large radio telescope is wrapping up testing and commissioning work – an effort that took place over the past three years. One of its assignments is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), among other scientific tasks. Located in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) began its operation in September 2016. […]
