February 3rd, 2021
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Think of it as methods of reaching extreme altitudes…and attitudes. The SpaceX Starship prototype departed the company’s Boca Chica facility near Brownsville, Texas on February 2. After carrying out a ballistic ballet of maneuvers, the Serial Number 9 (SN9) rocket crashed into the ground and exploded after roughly six minutes and 26 seconds of […]
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is just closing out Sol 3020 operations. Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports the robot is transitioning out of the fractured intermediate unit into a fractured rubbly unit, with rover drivers hoping to minimize wheel wear. A recent Curiosity touch-and-go was carried out, with the science […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3019 tasks. Curiosity was slated to attempt a novel experiment to witness the “triboelectric effect” for the first time on Mars, reports Melissa Rice, Planetary Geologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. What’s the triboelectric effect? “Certain materials build up an electrostatic charge when […]
I was delighted to be on The Agenda with Stephen Cole at the China Global Television Network (CGTN). From CGTN: “While the plans during the original space race were all about getting boots on the Moon, the new rush to space has tended to feature bigger and more long-term ambitions – like genuine international cooperation […]
Update: As early as Tuesday, February 2, the SpaceX team will attempt a high-altitude flight test of Starship serial number 9 (SN9) – the second high-altitude suborbital flight test of a Starship prototype from their site in Cameron County, Texas. According to a new posting from Starship Stalker: “Launch Today – FAA approval, evacuation notice, road […]
On Mars, it looks like there’s a cascading truism about Recurring Slope Lineae – what’s spurring these odd features continue to be a recurring controversy. Recurring Slope Lineae, RSL for short speak, grow incrementally, fade when inactive and return annually. To be classified as RSL, many streaks in the same site must be observed to […]
The prospect of propelling humans at greater speeds to Mars and beyond is an upshot from a new concept for a rocket thruster, one that exploits the mechanism behind solar flares. This new notion would accelerate the particles using “magnetic reconnection,” a process found throughout the universe, including the surface of the sun. It’s when […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3015 tasks. The robot is now sitting on a geological contact within the “fractured intermediate unit” and scientists are investigating the “rubbly” portion of that unit, reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Curiosity has carried out a […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3012 tasks. Reports Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K., the rover is now in a diverse area as it wheels itself across the Mars landscape. “A close look…reveals all the different textures of rock surfaces, sets of ripples, some big rocks […]
Spoiler alert: Don’t be heart-broken in learning how tough “radio-waving” between civilizations truly is! News travel’s fast, even at the lickety-split speed of light. Back in December, great attention was paid to a report that a mysterious radio signal appeared to have come from Proxima Centauri – the closest star system to us, […]
