January 7th, 2020
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Astronomy Confronts Satellite Constellations is the title of a briefing from the 235th AAS meeting in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. That briefing will be held on Wednesday, January 8, 2020, starting at 2:15 pm Hawaii Standard Time (HST). Those taking part in the panel discussion: — “Starlink & the Astronomers” by Jeffrey C. Hall (Lowell Observatory) — […]
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2637 duties. Claire Newman, an atmospheric scientist at Aeolis in Pasadena, California reports that telemetry recently showed one of Curiosity’s middle wheels was lifted, roughly 6 inches (15 centimeters) off the ground following a previous drive. “This meant we needed to do a short ‘bump’ to adjust […]
It is a credo expressed within the astronomy community: “Wishing you clear skies.” Same goes for those on the countdown clock ready to launch a rocket…and time is ticking away as SpaceX is set to hurl into Earth orbit another group of their Starlink satellites. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has given SpaceX the thumbs […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2635 tasks. Here’s a sampling of new imagery from the robot:
An unidentified astronaut aboard the International Space Station had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) – or blood clot – in the jugular vein of their neck. The astronaut’s identity is being kept anonymous for privacy reasons, so identifying information such as when this event happened is being omitted from the case study. The astronaut was […]
China’s farside lander and lunar rover, Yutu-2, have ended their work for the 13th lunar day on Thursday (Beijing time). The lunar twosome switched to dormant mode for the lunar night, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The country’s Chang’e-4 probe was launched on December […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2634 tasks. Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist at Canada’s University of New Brunswick, reports that two recent Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) passes that should have downlinked the data from Curiosity’s New Year activities, to enable planning, were delayed during processing on the ground. “We did not get […]
Enigmatic Mars has been taunting researchers for decades as to whether or not the Red Planet has been – or is today — an abode for life. Multiple nations are readying spacecraft for launching to Mars in 2020 (China, Europe, United States, the UAE) drawn once again to help unravel the complexities of that […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2633 tasks. Here’s a selection of New Year 2020 images from the robot that showcase its surroundings:
India is pressing forward with its human spaceflight program. Four Gaganyaan mission astronauts have been picked to begin training in Russia later this month. In a January 1 press briefing, K Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said: “We’ve made good progress in the mission. The process of astronaut selection for […]
