The Parker Solar Probe was clocked at over 330,000 miles per hour as it zipped through the sun’s outer atmosphere.
NASA is about to announce its next generation of Earth-observing satellites. As soon as this month, it will lay out preliminary plans for a multibillion-dollar set of missions that will launch later this decade. This “Earth system observatory,” as NASA calls it, will offer insights into two long-standing wild cards of climate change—clouds and aerosols—while providing new details about the temperatures and chemistry of the planet’s changing surface. The satellite fleets also mark a revival for NASA’s earth science, which has languished over the past decade compared with exploration of Mars and other planets.
More than a year into a very real crisis, experts gathered virtually to confront a second emergency, a potential asteroid impact — but this disaster, fortunately, was entirely hypothetical.
The Ingenuity helicopter proved it could fly on Mars. Now it has loftier goals. Having passed all its original engineering tests, the tiny spacecraft will now begin a new job, supporting the Perseverance rover in its science mission.
The experiment also shows that astronauts can make rocket fuel for their trip back to Earth
The highlight of the new chart is a wake of stars, stirred up by a small galaxy set to collide with the Milky Way. The map could also offer a new test of dark matter theories.
Monday, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).
The Ingenuity helicopter, which arrived on the red planet in February, is expected to take to the skies on Wednesday
Chunk of space rock was once the ‘poster child for hazardous asteroids’ but it will be a while before humans need to worry about it again
Earth’s second moon will make a close approach to the planet next week before drifting off into space, never to be seen again.
