Drilling Holes on the Red Planet

This image shows the Highfield drill hole, on Vera Rubin Ridge in Gale crater on Mars, made by NASA’s Curiosity rover in its search for rock samples. Just recently, scientists announced that an analysis of rock samples collected by the rover were enriched in carbon 12, a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes.

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Striking satellite photo captures Mount Vesuvius peering through a hole in the clouds

In this image captured Jan. 2 by the Landsat 8 satellite Mount Vesuvius is clearly visible through a circular hole in the clouds. (Image credit: Joshua Stevens/Landsat/NASA Earth Observatory) One of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, Mount Vesuvius, appears to “peer up” into the sky through an eerily circular hole in the clouds in this striking satellite image. The Operational Land Imager onboard the Landsat-8 satellite snapped the photo, which was released Jan. 10 by NASA’s Earth Observatory. The volcano’s summit caldera — a large bowl-like depression that forms when…

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What is a satellite?

A satellite is an object in space that orbits or circles around a bigger object. There are two kinds of satellites: natural (such as the moon orbiting the Earth) or artificial (such as the International Space Station orbiting the Earth). There are dozens upon dozens of natural satellites in the solar system, with almost every planet having at least one moon. Saturn, for example, has at least 53 natural satellites, and between 2004 and 2017, it also had an artificial one — the Cassini spacecraft, which explored the ringed planet…

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Axiom Space: Building the off-Earth economy

Axiom Space wants to take the off-Earth economy to new heights. The Houston-based company, which was founded in 2016, aims to build and operate its own space station in low Earth orbit (LEO) in the coming years. And Axiom has inked deals with SpaceX to fly multiple tourist missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the first of which is set to launch in late February 2022. Such projects are part of a grander plan to help humanity extend its footprint beyond its home planet. “Axiom’s vision of a thriving…

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Huge Tonga underwater volcano eruption captured in stunning satellite video

A powerful underwater volcano eruption in Tonga on Saturday (Jan. 15) was captured as it happened in stunning images from an Earth-watching satellite, showing the sheer power for the explosive event in the South Pacific.  The volcano eruption on the island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai is visible as a spectacular explosion in views from the GOES West Earth-observing satellite operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A video of the eruption shows a vast plume from the volcano rising high into the atmosphere like a giant mushroom…

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Climate scientist and Netflix ‘Don’t Look Up’ director talk comet metaphors and global warming (exclusive)

The creator of Netflix’s popular satire-comedy movie “Don’t Look Up” recently spoke with a climate scientist about how the movie contributes to the conversation about global warming. The interview, exclusively released to Space.com, is a 24-minute audio conversation between filmmaker Adam McKay and Kate Marvel, an associate research scientist at both Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. McKay opens the conversation by saying he went into a state of “real terror” and couldn’t sleep for three nights after reading the book “The Uninhabitable Earth” (Tim Duggan…

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China builds ‘artificial moon’ for gravity experiment

Chinese scientists have built an “artificial moon” research facility that will enable them to simulate low-gravity environments using magnetism.  The facility, slated for official launch this year, will use powerful magnetic fields inside a 2-foot-diameter (60 centimeters) vacuum chamber to make gravity “disappear.” The scientists were inspired by an earlier experiment that used magnets to levitate a frog.  Li Ruilin, a geotechnical engineer at the China University of Mining and Technology, told the South China Morning Post that the chamber, which will be filled with rocks and dust to imitate…

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