An ancient crater lake in the southern highlands of Mars appears to have been fed by glacial runoff, bolstering the idea that the Red Planet had a cold and icy past.
Shooting beams of ions at proton clouds, like throwing nuclear darts at the speed of light, can provide a clearer view of nuclear structure. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT
Shooting beams of ions at proton clouds may help researchers map the inner workings of neutron stars.
Physicists at MIT and elsewhere are blasting beams of ions at clouds of protons —like throwing nuclear darts at the speed of light — to map the structure of an atom ’s nucleus.
Virgin Galactic passengers won’t circle Earth like astronauts aboard the International Space Station do. But they will get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curve of Earth against the blackness of space. More than 600 people have booked a ride to date, at a price (most recently) of $250000 per seat, company representatives have said.
VSS Unity has company.
UVS images faint auroral rings that likely originate at edge of gas giant’s magnetosphere.
Distribution bots.
Boston Dynamics is best known for its robot dog Spot, a machine designed to work in a range of environments, from offshore oil rigs to deep underground mines. But in recent years, the company has increasingly focused attention on the logistics space, and today is unveiling a new robot with just one application in mind: moving boxes in warehouses.
The robot is called Stretch and looks relatively dull for a Boston Dynamics creation. It’s not modeled after humans or animals, and instead aims to be as practical as possible. It has a square mobile base containing a set of wheels, a “perception mast” with cameras and other sensors, and a huge robotic arm with seven degrees of freedom and a suction pad array on the end that can grab and move boxes up to 23 kilograms (50 lbs) in weight.
Desert sighting.
While taking images of its new surroundings on the arid Martian surface, the Perseverance rover recently spotted a dust devil whirling by in the distance.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=m3Hm0PGQb0I
On March 28, 2021 NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity took vertical position (upright) under Perseverance Rover at Helipad. Helicopter release system unlocked yesterday. Today ingenuity made one more step to be deployed from Perseverance. As for now, NASA’s rover prepares to unlock Helicopter’s landing legs and put it on the Mars’s surface. Flight scheme is known. Solar panel charges Lithium-ion batteries, providing enough energy for one 90-second flight per Martian day (~350 Watts of average power during flight). Atmospheric weather relates to conditions such as air density at flight time, which affects the thrust that can be produced by the rotor and could result in adjustments of flight parameters. Temperature and wind profiles during the day are used to estimate the energy required to operate heaters. Winds at the time of the flight are tied to risks associated with takeoff, landing, and flying in high winds or very gusty conditions. All the things that a pilot on Earth would care about too!
Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Continue reading “Mars Helicopter Ingenuity takes vertical position under Perseverance Rover” »
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xInLmHqWoqk
On March 27, 2021 NASA’s Perseverance Rover unlocked Mars Helicopter Ingenuity (release system unlocked) and started deployment process. As for now, NASA’s rover prepares to get the Helicopter upright. Flight scheme is known. Before Ingenuity takes its first flight on Mars, it must be squarely in the middle of its airfield – a 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) patch of Martian real estate chosen for its flatness and lack of obstructions. Once the helicopter and rover teams confirm that Perseverance is situated exactly where they want it to be inside the airfield, the elaborate process to deploy the helicopter on the surface of Mars begins.
Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Continue reading “Mars Helicopter Ingenuity unlocked from Perseverance Rover” »
As a future Mars tourist attraction, Olympus Mons is unlike anything else in the solar system.
(From left) Expedition 65 crew members Pyotr Dubrov, Oleg Novitskiy and Mark Vande Hei, pose for a photo during Soyuz qualification exams in Moscow.
The Expedition 64 crew continued researching how microgravity affects biology aboard the International Space Station today. The orbital residents also conducted vein and eye checks and prepared for three new crew members due in early April.
NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker joined Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov for vein and eye scans on Thursday. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi led the effort scanning veins in the trio’s neck, clavicle and shoulder areas using the Ultrasound 2 device in the morning. In the afternoon, Noguchi examined Walker’s eyes using the orbiting lab’s optical coherence tomography gear.
Continue reading “Vein, Eye Scans on Station as Next Crew Nears Launch” »
