NASA has selected 16 cool new futuristic space technology concepts for further study. Four of them are from NASA’s own Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), including a railway system on the moon to move cargo. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/futuristic-space-technology-concepts-nasa-jpl-niac…
Tag: subsurface
Dark streaks on Mars may be caused by salts and melting ice
Researchers at the SETI Institute say that unusual dark streaks on sun-facing slopes on Mars, debated about for years, may be small landslides caused by a combination of salts and melting ice just below the surface. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-dark-streaks-melting-ice-recurring-slope-lineae…
NASA “mole’s” attempts to dig into Mars failed. What’s next?
The mission team for NASA’s InSight lander called off its attempts to try to dig deeper into Mars with the heat probe known as “the mole.” Meanwhile, the rest of the mission gained an extension to December 2022. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-calls-halt-to-attempts-by-insight-mole-to-dig-into-mars…
Juno maps water ice across northern Ganymede
Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest planetary satellite in the solar system. It’s also one of the most intriguing: Ganymede is the only moon with its own magnetic field, it is the most differentiated of all moons, and it likely possesses a subsurface ocean of liquid water. It was studied by the early Jupiter flybys made by the Pioneer and Voyager…
6 space missions to look forward to in 2021
Here are some of the space missions to keep an eye out for in 2021. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/6-space-missions-2021-artemis-chandrayaa3-jameswebb…
A robot made of ice could adapt and repair itself on other worlds
Some of the most tantalizing targets in space exploration are frozen ice worlds. Take Jupiter’s moon Europa, for instance. Its warm, salty subsurface ocean is buried under a moon-wide sheet of ice. What’s the best way to explore it? Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-robot-ice-worlds.html…
Meet PitRanger: Tiny rover designed to probe the lunar underworld
Researchers have been busily building a prototype of a 33-pound (15 kg) lunar mini-robot, set to be the key instrument in a future mission aimed at capturing high-definition images of moon pits. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/meet-pitranger-a-tiny-rover-to-probe-lunar-underworld…
Samples from Ryugu Asteroid Revealed After Delivery to Earth
Mashable reports: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency showed off a collection of samples from the asteroid Ryugu on Thursday following the return of the Hayabusa2 probe. The black, gravelly samples from Ryugu contain a whole bunch of small chips collected from the asteroid’s subsurface… Normally, space rocks like these are collected after they enter Earth’s atmosphere at surface-scorching speeds. These samples…
Want to find life on Mars? Look deep underground
A new study from researchers at Rutgers University suggests that the best place to look for evidence of life on Mars is deep underground, where geothermal heat melted subsurface ice. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-life-search-subsurface-ice-melted-by-geothermal-heat…
Data models point to a potentially diverse metabolic menu at Enceladus
Using data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) modeled chemical processes in the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The studies indicate the possibility that a varied metabolic menu could support a potentially diverse microbial community in the liquid water ocean beneath the moon’s icy facade. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-potentially-diverse-metabolic-menu-enceladus.html…