Asteroids vs. microbes
Inside one of the containers of this 40-cm-across miniature laboratory in orbit, a battle is set to start between asteroid-like fragments and rock-hungry microbes, to probe their use for space mining in the future.
Inside one of the containers of this 40-cm-across miniature laboratory in orbit, a battle is set to start between asteroid-like fragments and rock-hungry microbes, to probe their use for space mining in the future.
Space Exploration
Jan 14, 2021
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13
Some of the most tantalizing targets in space exploration are frozen ice worlds. Take Jupiter's moon Europa, for instance. Its warm, salty subsurface ocean is buried under a moon-wide sheet of ice. What's the best way to ...
Space Exploration
Jan 13, 2021
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14
In 2020, astronomers added a new member to an exclusive family of exotic objects with the discovery of a magnetar. New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory help support the idea that it is also a pulsar, meaning ...
Astronomy
Jan 08, 2021
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Space exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth.
Space Exploration
Jan 04, 2021
3
164
A new generation of rocket propellants for deep space exploration such as ionic liquid propellants with long endurance and high stability, are attracting significant attention. However, ionic liquid propellants are strongly ...
Astronauts blasted into orbit from the U.S. for the first time in nearly a decade, three countries sent spacecraft hurtling toward Mars, and robotic explorers grabbed rocks from the moon and gravel from an asteroid for return ...
Space Exploration
Dec 16, 2020
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14
A small-satellite mission to understand the lunar water cycle—detecting and mapping water on the lunar surface in order to investigate how its form, abundance, and location relate to geology—has received NASA approval ...
Space Exploration
Dec 03, 2020
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9
China's landing of its third probe on the moon is part of an increasingly ambitious space program that has a robot rover en route to Mars, is developing a reusable space plane and is planning to put humans back on the lunar ...
Space Exploration
Dec 02, 2020
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9
China's landing this week of a probe on the Moon—the first attempt by any nation to retrieve lunar samples in four decades—underlined just how far the country has come in achieving its space dream.
Space Exploration
Dec 02, 2020
5
7
For space exploration to be successful, it's vital to understand—and find ways to address—underlying causes of the health issues that have been observed in astronauts who have spent extended periods of time off world. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 25, 2020
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