For NASA to extend its space science missions well past their original lifetime in space has become such a commonplace that it is barely noticed. The Curiosity rover was scheduled to last on Mars for two years but now it has been going for a decade -- following the pace set by earlier, smaller Mars …
Continue reading "The Juno Spacecraft Images Jupiter’s Moon Europa as it Speeds Past"
As a test of our ability to damage a potentially hazardous asteroid heading our way, or perhaps to give it enough of a push that the asteroid's path is changed enough to render it harmless, a NASA spacecraft tonight successfully collided with an asteroid some 6.8 mllion miles away. The Dart spacecraft – short for …
As scientists work to understand what might make a distant planet habitable, one factor that is getting attention is the shape of the planet's orbit, how "eccentric" it might be. It might seem that a perfect circular orbit would be ideal for habitability because it would provide stability, but a new model suggests that it …
Continue reading "How Planetary Orbits, in Our Solar System and Beyond, Can Affect Habitability"
For more than two decades now, the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) at the University of Washington in Seattle has been at the forefront of the crucial and ever-challenging effort to model how scientists can determine whether a particular exoplanet is capable of supporting life or perhaps even had life on it already. To do this, …
NASA's long-time motto for exploring Mars has been "Follow the water." That has changed some in recent years, as the presence of long-ago H2O has been confirmed in many locales around the planet. Moving on, the motto today is more "Follow the organics" -- the carbon-based building blocks of life -- in the search for …
Continue reading "A Detailed New Mapping of Where Mars Once Had Plentiful Water"
Of the many barriers to a human trip to Mars where astronauts would land, explore and return to Earth, the absence of oxygen in the Martian atmosphere is a big one. Without oxygen that can be collected to support life and to provide fuel for a flight home, there can be no successful human …
Continue reading "NASA Suceeds in Making Precious Oxygen from Carbon Dioxide on Mars"
The James Webb Space Telescope has begun the part of its mission to study the atmospheres of 70 exoplanets in ways, and at a depth, well beyond anything done so far. The telescope is not likely to answer questions like whether there is life on distant planet -- its infrared wavelengths will tell us …
Continue reading "The James Webb Space Telescope Begins Looking at Exoplanets"
When it come to habitable environments in our solar system, there's Earth, perhaps Mars billions of years ago and then a slew of ice-covered moons that are likely to have global oceans under their crusts. Many of you are familiar with Europa (a moon of Jupiter) and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn) -- which have …
Continue reading "Icy Moons, And Exploring The Secrets They Hold"
Late last month, it appeared that Russian participation in the International Space Station would end in 2024 -- or so seemed to say the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos Thirty years of unusual and successful cooperation would be coming to a close as the Ukraine war appeared to make longer-term commitments impossible, or …
The first of what will no doubt be a future flood of images from the James Webb Space Telescope -- which has the largest telescope mirror to ever be sent into space -- was released today and it shows the spectacular deep-field world of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. The image shows the galaxy cluster …
Continue reading "The First Major Image From The James Webb Space Telescope is a Show-Stopper"
Many Worlds 