Earth

The IM-1 Moon landing mission will come to a premature end on Tuesday morning. Intuitive Machines has announced that the Odysseus lander will no longer be able to charge its batteries by February 27 as sunlight stops falling on its solar panels.Today's announcement is a bittersweet end for a mission that survived tipping over on landing and the failure of a vital navigation system due to human error. When 'Odie' touched down on the Moon on February 22, it did so with the aid of a NASA experimental navigation system that…

Japan's first moon lander responded to a signal from Earth, suggesting it has survived a second freezing weekslong…

With the help of advanced tech marvels such as the NEOWISE telescope, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), Pans-STARRS1, and Catalina Sky Survey, NASA has shed light on an asteroid that is expected to pass Earth by a close margin on February 27. While the asteroid will come close to Earth, it is not expected to impact the surface, the US Space Agency has further revealed. Know the details of this close encounter with Asteroid 2024 CT7.Asteroid 2024 CT7: Close approach detailsAs per the details revealed by…

There are places in the Universe where matter becomes so wildly distorted that magnetism grows into an unimaginable force. Known as magnetars, the gravitationally compacted cores of these highly dynamic neutron stars concentrate magnetic fields to a strength of around 100 trillion gauss.Yet there could be zones here on Earth where tiny pockets of magnetism flicker with strengths that far exceed even these cosmic monstrosities.An analysis of particle interactions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the US…

On Wednesday, February 21st, at 01:40 p.m. PST (04:40 p.m. EST), an interesting package returned to Earth from space.This was the capsule from the W-1 mission, an orbital platform manufactured by California-based Varda Space Industries, which landed at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR). Even more interesting was the payload, which consisted of antiviral drugs grown in the microgravity environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO).The mission is part of the company's goal to develop the infrastructure to make LEO more…

New research has identified oceanic transform faults as significant, previously underestimated sinks for CO2, challenging existing notions about the Earth’s geological carbon cycle. This research emphasizes the crucial role of natural geological emissions in shaping Earth’s climate history and highlights the need for a deeper understanding of these processes in the context of addressing contemporary climate change. Above is a cut slice of altered mantle rock. Credit: Solvin ZanklStudying a rock is like reading a book. The…

ESA’s ERS-2 satellite, launched in 1995, has concluded its mission by reentering Earth’s atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean. (Artist’s concept of a satellite burning up in the atmosphere.) Credit: SciTechDaily.comMission complete. ESA’s second European Remote Sensing (ERS-2) satellite has reentered Earth’s atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean. The satellite returned on February 21, 2024, at 18:17 CET (17:17 UTC) between Alaska and Hawaii.ERS-2 was launched almost 30 years ago, on April 21, 1995. Together with…

A passing star may have altered Earth’s orbit more than three million years ago, researchers have found. A study featured in The Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that a star known as HD-7977 could have completely changed how our planet orbits the Sun, having lasting repercussions on how Earth developed.Scientists estimate that HD-7977 flew past our solar system roughly 2.8 million years ago. They believe it may have come within no more than 31,000 astronomical units (AUs) from the Sun, though that number…

Figure 1. Topographic data are draped over infrared image data showing complex tectonic structures and volcanic deposits in the Eridania region of Mars. Warm colors are higher elevations. Credit: NASA/Mars Odyssey/HRSCMars’s complex volcanism, driven by vertical tectonics, provides insights into ancient crustal recycling, offering new perspectives on both Martian and Earth geology.Volcanoes are a common feature on the surfaces of solid planets within the solar system, resulting from magmatic activity occurring within the…

Blue Origin, the space technologies founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has achieved a significant milestone with the debut of its New Glenn rocket on the launch pad at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36). This marks the first time the advanced heavy-lift vehicle has been rolled out and upended, providing a glimpse of what's to come for future space missions.New Glenn rocket debutsAs per a Blue Origin blog post. the New Glenn rocket is poised to play a pivotal role in various missions, including supporting NASA's Artemis program,…