Month: March 2023

UAE Mars orbiter creates stunning new map of the Red Planet

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A new map of Mars shows the Red Planet in stunning detail, revealing a wealth of fascinating geological features as seen from orbit.  The high-resolution map could help scientists answer a number of pressing questions about Mars including how it came to be a dry, arid, and barren landscape despite once being abundant with liquid water.  The Martian map was created by a team of scientists led by New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Center for Space Science (opens in new tab). The researchers…

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SpaceX Starship will launch this new private moon rover in 2026 (video)

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A new lunar rover has been unveiled for an upcoming mission to the moon aboard a SpaceX Starship. Hawthorne, California-based Astrolab has reached an agreement with SpaceX to launch its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover on an upcoming Starship mission to the moon. The mission is currently scheduled for as soon as the middle of 2026, according to an Astrolab statement (opens in new tab) published Friday (March 31).  When it arrives, FLEX will be the largest and most versatile rover ever to roll across the lunar surface. It…

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Black hole jet changes direction as astronomers watch in cosmic first — and it’s aimed right at us

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For the first time, astronomers have spotted a jet blasting from the core of a distant galaxy that has changed directions. About one percent of the supermassive black holes, which reside at the center of most galaxies, have disks of gas and dust swirling around them. Debris from this disk that ventures toward growing black holes blasts out powerful jets at light-like speeds in random directions. These jets push out massive amounts of energy into nearby areas and help shape galaxies over eons, so one of the ways astronomers classify…

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NASA establishes ‘Moon to Mars’ office to help get astronauts to Red Planet

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NASA has set up the Moon to Mars Program Office to manage crewed activities at and around these two deep-space destinations. (Image credit: NASA) NASA has set up a new office to manage the agency’s crewed activities at and around the moon and Mars. “The Moon to Mars Program Office will help prepare NASA to carry out our bold missions to the moon and land the first humans on Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on Thursday (opens in new tab) (March 30).  “The golden age of…

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Amazon’s Kuiper satellite constellation will use these sleek antennas to serve you internet

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Amazon has revealed three terminals that customers might use to link up with Project Kuiper, the company’s satellite internet program. One day, Amazon hopes those satellites will provide internet access to users in remote areas. Now, Amazon has previewed (opens in new tab) the grounded part of that plan — Project Kuiper’s receiving terminals — at the SATELLITE space technology conference in Washington, D.C. The standard terminal resembles a small stool and has a capacity of 400 megabits per second. Amazon will market this terminal to residential and small business…

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Mars cave-exploring robots take inspiration from Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumb trick

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Newly proposed Mars exploration rovers have a peculiar inspiration, the classic Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.  The flock of robots will follow “breadcrumbs” to find their way out of caves just as the eponymous siblings attempted to escape the forest in which they were abandoned by their parents in the famous fairytale.  The breadcrumbs-following flock of robots devised by researchers at the University of Arizona (UArizona) College of Engineering could explore subsurface regions on Mars including caves and lava vents. This exploration could help scout out locations that…

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