Tag: Planetary science
NASA’s Mars helicopter glimpses Perseverance rover from sky
NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, captured an aerial image of the Perseverance rover during its latest flight at the end of last week.
The aircraft and rover arrived together on the red planet in February 2021, and since then both have been operating inside the Jezero Crater, a dried-up lake that scientists believe could contain evidence of ancient life.
In an image shared by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is overseeing the current Mars mission, we can just spot
What comes after Webb? NASA’s next-generation planet-hunting telescope
When it comes to building enormous, complex space telescopes, agencies like NASA have to plan far in advance. Even though the James Webb Space Telescope only launched recently, astronomers are already busy thinking about what will come after Webb — and they’ve got ambitious plans.
The big plan for the next decades of astronomy research is to find habitable planets, and maybe even to search for signs of life beyond Earth. That’s the lofty goal of the Habitable Worlds
James Webb captures gorgeous Ring Nebula in stunning detail
A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the stunning and distinctive Ring Nebula — a gorgeous structure of dust and gas located in the constellation of Lyra. This nebula is a favorite among sky watchers as it faces toward Earth so we can see its beautiful structure, and because it is visible throughout the summer from the Northern Hemisphere. It is different from the Southern Ring nebula, which Webb has also imaged, but both are a type
Curiosity rover battles up a 23-degree slope on Mars
The Curiosity rover is slowly making its way up Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall mountain on Mars. Mountains are useful to study as their steep slopes can reveal layers of material laid down over time, like a geological time capsule. But just like heaving up a mountain is a challenge for humans, it can be tricky for rovers too. Curiosity recently took on a particularly steep and slippery slope, marking its most challenging climb to date.
How difficult terrain is for
NASA accidentally loses contact with legendary Voyager 2
NASA has lost contact with the legendary Voyager 2 spacecraft after “inadvertently” sending it a command that caused the antenna to point 2 degrees away from Earth.
The error means that Voyager 2, which launched in 1977 and is currently around 12.4 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, is unable to receive commands or transmit data back to mission controllers.
“This change has interrupted communication between Voyager 2 and the
Webb spots water vapor in a planet-forming disk
One of the big open questions about Earth and how life formed here is where the planet’s water came from. Water is essential to life as we know it, but many scientists think that water did not originally form on Earth — rather, it may have been carried here by asteroids. Recently, though, astronomers have discovered water vapor in the planet-forming region of a star, suggesting that future planets which form here might have access to water right from the