December 31st, 2020
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China’s highly successful Chang’e-5 lunar mission retrieved about 4 pounds (1,731 grams) of samples. Its lander-ascender combination successfully touched down on the near side of the Moon on December 1, collecting samples from both the lunar surface and beneath. The ascender later rocketed the specimens off the Moon for transfer to an orbiter/returner for transport […]
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A new report has focused on safeguarding the surface and subsurface regions of the Earth’s Moon from organic and biological contamination. In future years, there is concern regarding the impact of human activities on the Moon that would affect lunar polar volatiles, such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane. There is potential threat of contaminating […]
Today, the National Space Council released the National Strategy for Planetary Protection. “This Strategy will advance the Nation’s role in the sustainable exploration of space by appropriately protecting other planetary bodies and the Earth from potentially harmful biological contamination from space exploration activities,” according to a National Space Council statement. Objectives The strategy […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just entered Sol 2987.New imagery from the robot follows:
The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 was included in the just-signed Omnibus bill for Covid-relief. In the Act there is support for the unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence, requesting the Task Force to submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act […]
The next chapter in the U.S. human exploration of the Moon, the Artemis Project, will dispatch crews there for extended periods of time, building upon the heritage of project Apollo. Between 1969 and the end of 1972, a dozen astronauts kicked up the powdery regolith, the topside dirt of the Moon. But there’s one […]
About those mysterious radio signals that appear to have come from Proxima Centauri – the closest star system to us, just a scant 4.2 light-years away. It’s known to be accompanied by at least two planets. The Breakthrough Listen Project has been examining the emission since its detection. They even dubbed it BLC1 […]
China is set to launch the core module of the country’s first space station in the first half of next year. “We’ve basically completed the development of the core module of the space station as well as the Long March-5B Y2 rocket which will carry the module in the launch. The tests are in […]
Review of the movie “Greenland”, released on pay-per-view ($19.99) or streaming on Dec. 18, 2020 By Clark R. Chapman “Greenland” is a high-production-value movie nominally about the onset of the apocalypse due to an interstellar “comet” (unfortunately, from my perspective, named Comet Clarke) striking Earth over a period of several days, as […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2981 tasks. “We made it,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “After a quick jaunt across the rrubbly’ unit, Curiosity has reached the ‘Sands of Forvie’ in time for the holidays.” This sand sheet is approximately 1,312 feet (400 meters) across and […]
