NASA is working towards landing humans on the Moon in 2024, the first visit in the 21st century. This time the crew will include women as well as people of color. This work is being conducted under the name Artemis project, named for the Ancient Greek Goddess of the Moon. The idea is to eventually set up an operational base on the Moon for future launches to Mars. The biggest question or concern now is the natural availability of resources for humans who will be working on the Moon; the most important being water. It is a known fact that there are traces of water on the North and the South poles on the Lunar surface, but it is not well established whether it is abundant or not. Geologists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks not only describe the reason for the water on the Moon but also estimate its quantity. This research, led by research associate professor Gunther Kletetschka, suggests that the hydrogen and oxygen ions escaping from our atmosphere combine on the Moon to form water (The molecular form of water contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom or H2O). These authors suggest that when the Moon passes through the Earth’s magnetosphere, estimated at about five days in a month, hydrogen and oxygen ions from the Earth are passed to the Moon. The magnetosphere is a bubble wrap of the magnetic field around our planet that shields us from harmful solar winds or other harmful stuff in space. This has been happening for 3.5 billion years which is when our Earth was about a billion years old. All these years of accumulation led to a lot of water deposits on the polar caps of the lunar surface. These authors estimate that these regions could contain about 80 cubic miles of water created by this process. It should be noted that this is not the only source of water there. It is believed that a lot of other sources like comets, asteroids, etc. also brought quite a lot of water to our beloved natural satellite. Nonetheless, this discovery is an exciting one because it paves our way into the exploration of planets in our solar system. Source: Scientific reports, phys.org

Researchers led by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have discovered the molecular process behind a dangerous loss of cardiac muscle that could aid astronauts during long space flights. "NASA is very interested in cardiac atrophy," says Jeffery Molkentin, PhD, Co-Director of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children's, and author of the paper. "It might be the single biggest issue for long-period space flights and astronaut health, especially when re-entering a higher-gravity situation, whether that's arriving at Mars or returning to Earth." To tackle loss of muscle mass, astronauts and cosmonauts currently have rigorous exercise regimes while in space. This became protocol ever since the first space flights, after which doctors realized that returning astronauts were often barely able to walk upon returning to Earth, and had an increased risk of cardiac problems after arriving back from space. For the study, the researchers studied mouse models to trace the molecular process behind cardiac atrophy. In doing so, they identified a three-way process that can lead to a rapid and lethal loss of heart mass in mice. Firstly, overexpression of the gene, thrombospondin-1, activates a signalling protein known as PERK. Excessive PERK activity then triggers a response from the transcription factor ATF4. This sequence then goes on to program heart muscles to atrophy. The longer these genes are activated, the more muscle mass atrophies. The researchers say that being able to block or reduce this response could be a new way to address the loss of heart muscle during space travel. While interesting findings , the researchers warn that they still need to confirm whether the same process occurs in people. While it is currently not possible to replace lost heart muscle tissue, it may be possible to rehabilitate weakened or atrophied heart muscle cells to properly function. "Our findings describe a new pathway of muscle mass loss," says Molkentin. "More research is needed to develop methods or drugs that can interrupt this signaling pathway through these genes to stop cardiac atrophy once detected." Sources: EurekAlert, Nature Communications

Plans for future space exploration are taking shape, and many of those are expected to be crewed. One such example involves the Moon, and if astronauts are to conduct extended stays on the lunar surface, then humankind will need to uncover the Moon’s valuable resources and ascertain ways to live off the land as opposed to relying on shipments from Earth as astronauts on the International Space Station do currently. One of the most important things we’ll need to find first is water, and scientists are fairly certain that we’ll find lots of it residing in the craters on the Moon’s South pole, which never sees sunlight. Said water isn’t just sitting there in the form of frozen lakes, but rather frozen in the moon’s lunar soil. It would necessitate heavy processing to extract, but if the prediction models are correct, then there could be enough water there for both life support and for making rocket fuel for return trips to Earth. Lunar astronauts would also need to set up heavy shelter, as the Moon lacks a robust atmosphere to shield visitors from the harmful radiation emanating from the Sun and outer space. The idea would be to develop life support modules that would be air-locked from the outside, and they’d be heavily shielded by 3D-printed layers that would protect from both radiation and space rock impacts. In time, learning the steps necessary to ensure survival on another world without dependence on Earthly shipments could assist space agencies in their goal of nailing the requirements for deep space missions. Mars, for example, is a mutual interest between nations, and the things we learn right here in our own back yard could be useful as we move to place astronauts on another planet besides Earth in the name of science.

In a recent study published in Ceramics International, a team of researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have created 3D-printed bricks of lunar regolith that could be used to construct buildings on the Moon for the Artemis missions in the coming years. This study has the potential to drastically decrease the cost of sending construction materials to the Moon, since the Moon itself could be mined for construction materials. For the study, the researchers combined binder jet technology (BJT)—a procedure used in manufacturing that involves forcing a liquid binding agent onto a powder bed—and 3D printing to create the bricks. In this case, the liquid binding agent was saltwater and the lunar regolith acted as the powder. "BJT is uniquely suitable for ceramic-like materials that are difficult to melt with a laser," said Dr. Ranajay Ghosh, who is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCF, and a co-author on the study. "Therefore, it has great potential for regolith-based extraterrestrial manufacturing in a sustainable way to produce parts, components and construction structures." Once the BJT process was complete, the bricks were subjected to temperatures up to 1200 degrees Celsius (2192 degrees Fahrenheit) which strengthened their structural integrity while allowing them to resist pressure equivalent to 250 million times the atmosphere of the Earth. It was discovered that bricks subjected to lower temperatures crumbled. "This research contributes to the ongoing debate in space exploration community on finding the balance between in-situ extraterrestrial resource utilization versus material transported from Earth," said Dr. Ghosh. "The further we develop techniques that utilize the abundance of regolith, the more capability we will have in establishing and expanding base camps on the moon, Mars, and other planets in the future." Sources: Ceramics International As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

Since the development of the transmission electron microscope (TEM), scientists have sought ways to improve spatial resolution. With the design of the aberration-correcting lens systems for scanning TEM (STEM), it has achieved a sub-Å spatial resolution. However, the negative aspect of using current magnetic condenser-objective-lens systems for atomic-resolution, is the required need to insert the samples into very high magnetic fields of up to 2-3 T. Learn more about the history of microscopes: The use of high fields can severely tamper with atomic-resolution imaging of magnetic materials, such as silicon steel, and even cause destruction of the magnetic and physical structure. The inventions of new magnetic materials is a rapidly growing field, however, the need for high quality atomic-scale structural analysis remains a hindrance to many technological advances. Now, under the JST-SENTAN (Development of System and Technology for Advanced Measurement and Analysis, Japan Science and Technology Agency) joint development team, a new magnetic-field-free objective-lens system was developed. The revolutionary microscope contains two round lenses placed in an exact mirror-symmetric configuration with respect to the sample plane providing an extremely small residual magnetic fields. The microscope was used to observe the atomic structure of a grain-oriented silicon-steel sheet which is critical soft magnetic engineering material used in the development of electric transformers and motors. The developed Magnetic-field-free Atomic-Resolution STEM (“MARS”) combined with a higher-order aberration corrector (shown above in the objective-lens system), this system can focus an electron beam to the atomic scale. ©JST Findings show a clear atomic resolution of the silicon steel and is the first development of atom-resolved imaging of materials with sub-Å spatial resolution and a residual magnetic field less than 0.2 mT. Although it operates like conventional TEMs/STEMs, the development is expected to advance research and nanotechnology because of the unprecedented atomic-level structural characterization of magnetic materials. Source: Science Daily

A successful tethered test-fire of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket at NASA’s historic launch pad 39A last week marked a great start for the commercial space company’s most powerful rocket to date. Now, the Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight is the next thing on the agenda. Image Credit: SpaceX SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been teasing a “near-future” Falcon Heavy launch for a while now, but as of this weekend, we finally have an official launch date to mark on our calendars. Musk Tweeted Saturday evening that the Falcon Heavy would take off from Cape Kennedy’s launch pad 39A on Saturday, February 6th. Notably, Musk excluded an exact timeframe from his public announcement, so this variable remains unknown. On the outside, the Falcon Heavy looks just like three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, but looks can be deceiving. The Falcon Heavy is instead an entirely new class of rocket that promises to open doors to a new age of space exploration. The Falcon Heavy’s 27 Merlin engines sport enough thrust to lift 119,000 pounds from Earth’s surface up into space, and this makes the heavy-lifter ideal for both sending large payloads into space and conducting long-distance trips. Given the growing interest of building a lunar-orbiting space station and the common goal of sending human explorers on Mars for the first time in history, the Falcon Heavy might serve as the ideal solution. That aside, the Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight won’t be so adventurous. SpaceX plans to throttle the rocket’s engine performance to just 92% to monitor slight performance more reliably. On the other hand, Musk will make things interesting by sending some rather unusual cargo into outer space: a Tesla Roadster electric car. It should be interesting to see how the launch turns out. After all, even Elon Musk admits that there’s plenty of room for failure. Source: SpaceX via Elon Musk

The moon may have hosted an ocean of magma for 200 million years according to new findings- considerably longer than previously thought. So far, the leading explanation for how the moon came to be is that it came as the result of a collision between two protoplanets or young planets. One of those was the nascent Earth, and the other: an object the size of Mars known as Theia. "An important outcome of this scenario is that the early moon, which accreted from the debris of this giant impact, was very hot — hot enough for its rocky mantle to be largely molten and form what we call a magma ocean," says lead author of the new study, Maxime Maurice, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center in Berlin. Although the idea of the moon being home to a large magma ocean is generally accepted, how long it took to solidify remains a mystery. While previous models suggest that this happened quickly- just some tens of millions of years- current findings indicate otherwise. In the new study, researchers built a model to consider many processes disregarded until now to calculate how quickly the lunar magma solidified. One such process is mantle convection- the way molten rock churns to the surface of a planet, much like how volcanoes work on Earth. In accounting for these features, they found that the luna magma sea may have taken between 150 and 200 million years to solidify, or ten times longer than previously thought. The model also suggests that the moon is between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old- around 50 million to 100 million years younger than previously suggested. Should these findings be correct, it means that large-scale collisions, such as those that birthed the moon, were still happening 150 million years after the solar system came to be. "It was very exciting to see that our findings had these kinds of broad implications," says Maurice. Sources: Space.com, Science Advances

NASA is about to have the opportunity to test something very interesting in space. SpaceX sent a resupply capsule to the International Space Station at the beginning of the week, following a separate resupply capsule that blasted off from Kazakhstan over the weekend with additional supplies. The resupply mission carried up to 5,000 pounds of experiments and other dry supplies that the space crew needs to survive, and it would appear that one of the things astronauts are getting as a part of a new experiment are radiation-loving fungi that have been sourced directly from Chernobyl. For those unaware, Chernobyl is the site of an infamous nuclear power plant meltdown that occurred in 1986. The catastrophe led to the escape of radioactive materials into nature, and has had a lot of long-term effects on the ecology of the region. Nevertheless, several species of fungi tend to thrive in the area because they actually feed off of the radiation. Now, NASA wants to know how this fungi fares in outer space, where radiation levels are higher than the typical place on Earth. Still, it’s less than Chernobyl, where the meltdown occurred. NASA is hoping that experimenting with the eight species of radiation-hungry fungi will someday help in developing technology that could help keep astronauts safe from radiation in future deep space missions. These might include trips to Mars in decades to come. Additionally, scientists are very interested to see what kinds of compounds that the microorganisms produce in space as a result of being struck by the radiation in microgravitational conditions. This wouldn’t be the first time NASA has played with microbes in space. Earlier this year, microbes that were a part of a space experiment came back to Earth, having landed in a capsule in the Pacific Ocean, for observation. Scientists found that the effects of microgravity may have actually enabled these specimens to produce different compounds, and that’s why there’s so much excitement in sending these new species of fungi into space, especially since they thrive in radioactive environments. Will they be of use? We’ll just have to see… Source: Popular Science

After a long 340-day stay aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly will be returning to Earth this week in a Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko. Reflecting on his year in space, Kelly said that he could easily go another year on the International Space Station, but he wouldn't mind returning to Earth to get back with the people that mean a lot to him. Although he’s spent 34o consecutive days in space during this particular trip, he’s accumulated a grand total of 500 days in space across multiple missions. Kelly will undergo a medical checkup to see how the long-term stay in space has affected his health. Data collected from these long-term International Space Station missions is helpful because NASA would one day like to send mankind to Mars and we still don't really have a clue how such a feat will impact the health of the human body. Scott Kelly, along with his twin brother Mark who has stayed on Earth all this time, have been collecting bodily fluid samples that will be compared to one another to see how the year-long stay in space affects the body. Obviously, Mark plays an important role as the control variable, while Scott will show if space has any adverse effects. During his stay on the International Space Station, Kelly has taken some amazing photographs of the Earth and plenty of other things that have inspired the world about space travel. More importantly, he has also been a very important character in many of NASA’s experiments that are currently taking place on board the International Space Station, such as growing lettuce in space, and even growing flowers in space. The Soyuz carrying Kelly and Korniyenko will land on Earth at approximately 11:27 P.M. on Tuesday after it undocks from the International Space Station at about 8:05 P.M. Source: Wired

NASA's Dawn spacecraft will have plenty of mysteries to investigate when it begins orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres next month, as the probe's latest photos attest.Dawn's most recent images of Ceres, taken Feb. 12 at a distance of 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) away, show an abundance of craters on the dwarf planet, as well as numerous bright spots that have scientists baffled."As we slowly approach the stage, our eyes transfixed on Ceres and her planetary dance, we find she has beguiled us but left us none the wiser," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA said in a statement. "We expected to be surprised; we did not expect to be this puzzled."The new photos, which have a resolution of 4.9 miles (7.8 km) per pixel, are the sharpest ever taken of Ceres, NASA officials said.A large, flickering white spot was also visible in photos Dawn took of Ceres last month."We can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery," Dawn mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told Space.com via email at the timeDawn could clear up the mystery soon. The probe is scheduled to enter orbit around the 590-mile-wide (950 km) Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, on the night of March 5. Dawn will start studying Ceres in earnest six weeks after that; the probe is scheduled to work its way down to its first science orbit on April 23.The $466 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study the asteroid belt's two biggest denizens - the protoplanet Vesta, which is 330 miles (530 km) wide, and Ceres. Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, when it departed for Ceres.Dawn's observations of these two planetary building blocks should help scientists better understand the solar system's early days, NASA officials said.Dawn is scheduled to study Ceres from a variety of orbits through June 2016, when the probe's mission will come to an end.

Orbiting hundreds of miles above the Earth is humanity’s largest technological construction, the football field-sized International Space Station (ISS), which is a modular-assembled space station having been in orbit since 1998 when its first habitat was launched into space. At the present time, the ISS can comfortably house up to seven astronauts for up to six months at a time, during which time they perform scientific experiments pertaining to how humans and other biological organisms behave in the microgravity environment. As its name implies, the ISS is sponsored by countless nations from all over the world, having housed citizens of those member states, as well. While the United States has the most astronauts who have visited the ISS, other nations include Russia, France, Japan, and even South Africa. One key goal of the ISS is to see how humans can live and work in microgravity while striving to better understanding the physiological effects of long-term space travel. An example of this is when NASA astronaut Scott Kelly lived on the ISS for one year while his twin brother, Mark Kelly, stayed on Earth. Both men were under near-constant examination for the duration of the mission so doctors could evaluate physiological changes in Scott and compare them to his twin brother. The experiments conducted on the ISS are meant to advance human space exploration, especially with the NASA Artemis missions sending humans back to the Moon in the next few years, and possibly Mars within the next 10-15 years. While the ISS will not remain in orbit forever, the current plan is to decommission and deorbit the orbiting laboratory by 2031, with Russia planning on canceling its participation in the project by 2024. Sources: NASA, National Geographic, NASA (1), National Geographic (1), NASA (2), BBC Sky at Night Magazine As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Featured Image: Completed ISS in 2010. (Credit: NASA/Crew of STS-132)

In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists from Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine in collaboration with FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and the Chemical Sciences Division, have discovered that the venom from Conus nux can treat malaria. "Molecular stability, small size, solubility, intravenous delivery, and no immunogenic response make conotoxins excellent blockade-therapy candidates," said Andrew V. Oleinikov, Ph.D., corresponding author and a professor of biomedical science, FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine. "Conotoxins have been vigorously studied for decades as molecular probes and drug leads targeting the central nervous systems. They also should be explored for novel applications aimed to thwart amiss cellular responses or foil host parasite interactions through their binding with endogenous and exogenous proteins. Further investigation is likely to yield breakthroughs in fields continuously toiling for more efficient therapeutic approaches such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, novel emerging viral diseases as well as malaria where venom-based peptidic natural products can be put into practice." Findings were published in the Journal of Proteomics. "Among the more than 850 species of cone snails there are hundreds of thousands of diverse venom exopeptides that have been selected throughout several million years of evolution to capture their prey and deter predators," said Frank Marí, Ph.D., corresponding author and senior advisor for biochemical sciences at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "They do so by targeting several surface proteins present in target excitable cells. This immense biomolecular library of conopeptides can be explored for potential use as therapeutic leads against persistent and emerging diseases affecting non-excitable systems." Learn more about malaria: Source: Science Daily

When NASA launched its InSight mission to study the neighboring planet of Mars, the payload also comprised of two briefcase-sized CubeSats that were collectively named Mars Cube One (MarCO). NASA used the pair of CubeSats to relay real-time status information about the InSight landing (after a small bit of latency due to the distance, of course). Image Credit: NASA/JPL To help NASA distinguish between each of the two MarCO CubeSats, NASA independently named them EVE and WALL-E, a nod to one of Pixar’s popular animated films. Unfortunately, NASA’s relationship with the two CubeSats wouldn’t last long; the space agency lost contact with WALL-E on December 29th and then EVE on January 4th, each just over a month after the InSight lander touched down on the Martian surface. As you might come to expect, NASA has been trying to reestablish a connection with the pair of MarCO CubeSats since the space agency first lost contact, but all efforts to do so thus far have been unsuccessful. As it would seem, the WALL-E MarCO CubeSat sported a leaky thruster, which may have introduced undesirable wobbling to its projected trajectory. If true, then this would mean WALL-E can’t keep its antenna pointed at scientists here on Earth, and this would inhibit them from contacting it. Determining why EVE stopped communicating with NASA scientists is a bit more challenging. With no known thruster problems, NASA instead theorizes that it merely reached its distance limit and the antenna can no longer reach us. EVE is estimated to be around 2 million miles away from Earth; comparatively, WALL-E is just 1 million miles away. NASA says the MarCO CubeSats won’t receive enough sunlight to power their batteries again until this Summer, and the space agency will attempt to re-contact them again at that time. There’s no guarantee they’ll succeed, however. Related: Hope dwindling as NASA fails to hear back from the Opportunity rover Despite losing contact with both MarCO CubeSats in the same general timeframe, NASA still considers their pioneering legacy to be a great success. The MarCO satellites marked history as the first miniature CubeSats ever deployed on a deep-space mission, and you can bet NASA learned a lot from the endeavor – knowledge that will go on to fuel future deep-space aspirations. "This mission was always about pushing the limits of miniaturized technology and seeing just how far it could take us," said Andy Klesh, the mission's chief engineer at JPL. "We've put a stake in the ground. Future CubeSats might go even farther." "There's big potential in these small packages," added John Baker, the MarCO program manager at JPL. "CubeSats - part of a larger group of spacecraft called SmallSats - are a new platform for space exploration that is affordable to more than just government agencies." It should be interesting to see what future missions NASA will employ CubeSats for, especially given their cost-efficiencies when compared to the full-sized satellite variety. Only time will tell, however. Source: NASA/JPL

When astronauts go into space for long periods of time to study on the International Space Station, mankind learns a lot more about the physics of space and learns of new ways to improve on our space technology, but it comes at a price. Image Credit: NASA As we’ve learned from astronauts that spend long durations of time on space, the lack of Earth-like gravity can have an ongoing effect on muscle loss on the human body. On Earth, gravity is constantly pulling us down, and we use our muscles to overcome that force. The minimum muscle we need to stand and move here on Earth is easily lost in space, as our bodies no longer have to hold themselves up in the microgravity there. Researchers were interested in learning more about how this affects the spine. Astronauts commonly report ailments like back pain or herniated discs after returning to Earth, and in many cases, they may return to Earth taller than they did when they went into space, as their spines expand. In a study published in the journal Spine, researchers used MRI machines to learn more about the effects of long space missions on astronauts’ spines, ranging from four to seven months. Six astronauts, a woman and five men, were observed before, immediately after, and some time after the space travel to see what kinds of effects space’s weightlessness would have on the spine and how long it would take for the body to regain its muscle. Muscular atrophy was observed in all test subjects’ spins, and it was found that it took a significant amount of time to regain the muscle that was lost from time in space. The ratio of lean muscle reportedly tanked from 86% prior to the space mission to just 72% when returning to Earth. Making matters even more difficult on the astronauts, the follow-up checkup about a month and a half after returning to Earth showed that the ratio had increased to only 81%, which although it may be a good increase from 72%, was still under where they began prior to going to space. The research has revealed that perhaps additional exercise methods could be of use to astronauts while they spend their prolonged time in space. Clearly, exercising just the legs and arms isn’t enough. Core strength exercises could be a good place to start and may dramatically improve human health over the course of their space missions. We’re surely going to have to conquer this issue somehow in the near future, as NASA pushes its interest in putting mankind on Mars in the next few decades, which has less of a gravitational pull than the Earth does. Mars missions would also spell out a much longer stay for an astronaut than the International Space Station would, which means the effects could be far more long-term. Source: Wolters Kluwer via Fox News

NASA’s Curiosity rover has been roaming the red planet’s seemingly lifeless surface for almost four-and-a-half years to date, moving slowly and efficiently. Throughout this time, it has rolled almost a grand total of 9.9 miles. It's moving along on a rough rocky and sandy surface, so it isn’t surprising to learn that the rover’s is subjected to wear and tear, just like any other vehicle used here on Earth. NASA’s latest announcement reveals that the wheels are breaking down from all the beatings they receive; images shared by a recent rover checkup earlier this year, which was performed with the same camera that typically allows Curiosity to take selfies, reveal that the unique tread on them are beginning to come loose and fall off. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA is so far satisfied with how long the rover’s aluminum wheels have lasted, and suggests that they still have at least 60% of their operating life left before they are no longer effective and need to be replaced. “All six wheels have more than enough working lifespan remaining to get the vehicle to all destinations planned for the mission,” said Jim Erickson, the Curiosity Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “While not unexpected, this damage is the first sign that the left middle wheel is nearing a wheel-wear milestone.” For what it’s worth, NASA’s Curiosity rover is approximately as large as a full-size car, and each aluminum wheel is about 20 inches in diameter by 16 inches wide. The treads, which NASA says are known as “grousers,” aren’t like ordinary car tire treads, rather they’re zig-zaggy and allow the wheel to bite into the loose surface more easily. There are 19 of these per wheel. The rover isn’t light, so when it crawls over rocks here and there, the sharp objects can easily wreak havoc on the aluminum wheels. Unlike other metals, aluminum is more prone to bending and warping because it’s a softer metal, but it’s also lighter and more corrosion-resistant, which made it the optimal choice for the Curiosity mission. To add to their rigidity, they were milled from solid blocksof aluminum in a machining facility. You might also like: Curiosity rover spots dust devils on Mars Because everything is going according to plan for Curiosity, including its predicted wear and tear, it’s assumed the rover will continue carrying out its scientific duties without any issues. Curiosity will continue to sweep the red planet autonomously for at least 3.7 miles more so we can continue to learn more about it. Soon, the Mars 2020 rover mission will render Curiosity obsolete, so let's all just hope that Curiosity can hang in there long enough for the new rover to arrive and resume where Curiosity left off. Source: NASA

If you were to ask any average Joe to describe what space is like in between all the planets in our solar system, they’d most likely reply with something along the lines of an empty vacuum with no air and a rock here and there. While they’re partially right, there’s a bigger picture. Much of what makes the mechanisms of outer space tick are invisible to the naked eye. A mix of various forces, including gravitational and magnetic fields, act as the stellar glue that influences matter throughout the universe. Image Credit: TodayIFoundOut.com Most planets produce magnetic fields, and these influence particles as they move through the vacuum of outer space between planetary bodies. Magnetic fields are vital to a planet’s habitability; not only do they shield worlds from damaging solar winds, but they also protect it from interstellar radiation (the kind that originates from other galaxies). Earth’s countless life forms have the planet’s magnetic field to thank for keeping this world habitable, among other things. Related: Mars' lack of a magnetic field is part of the reason the planet is a dry and lifeless place today You can think of a magnetosphere as an invisible bubble surrounding a planet. Notably, while the Earth is puny compared to the Sun, our planet’s magnetosphere is nearly as large as our host star. Comparatively, Jupiter has a magnetic field spanning more than 15 times the Sun’s diameter; crazy, right? Video Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/JPL NAIF Earth’s magnetic field is conveniently located right here in our backyard, making it easy for scientists to study it. Analyzing other planets’ magnetospheres, on the other hand, is more challenging because they’re further away from us. To tackle this quandary, we deploy spacecraft to probe other worlds. Scientists have done this for decades, allowing us to paint a picture of how different planets’ magnetic fields look and achieve a higher understanding of what makes them tick. Related: Did a solar storm damage Earth's magnetic field? Apart from Mars and Venus, every other planet in the solar system has a magnetic field, but they’re generated differently. While flowing molten metal in Earth’s core creates our planet’s magnetic field, Jupiter’s is produced by compressed liquid metallic hydrogen at its center. It’s a similar concept, but the mechanisms are different. Interestingly, Ganymede is the only moon in the solar system that sports a magnetic field. Even distant brown dwarfs and exoplanets from other stellar systems may exhibit magnetic fields, but many of these targets are too far away to study in detail. While planetary scientists have a general idea of how magnetic fields work, our knowledge is undoubtedly limited. Fortunately, probes are examining other planets right this second, and with a little bit of luck, we may be able to solve more mysteries about magnetic fields as time goes on. Source: NASA

It was just at the end of last year that NASA divulged its plans to resume lunar-centric science operations. Perhaps one of the most striking components of the space agency’s plan was to build an International Space Station-like research lab dubbed “Gateway,” which would orbit the Moon and act as a go-between for astronauts. Intriguingly, the Canadian Space Agency has expressed interest in being a part of its construction. In addition to agreeing to provide supplementary funds that will help transform NASA’s Gateway vision into a reality, Canada said it would build and deliver a next-generation robotic arm much like the one that currently resides on the International Space station. Image Credit: Steve Robinson/NASA “Nasa is thrilled that Canada is the first international partner for the Gateway lunar outpost,” elucidated NASA’s acting administrator Jim Bridenstine. “Space exploration is in Canada's DNA. Our new collaboration on Gateway will enable our broader international partnership to get to the Moon and eventually to Mars.” Related: Russia wants to build a lunar base by the 2030s The robotic arm that Canada built for the International Space Station is called the Canadarm2, and it is frequently used for space station repairs and docking spacecraft with the Earth-orbiting space lab. As you might come to expect, the next-generation robotic arm will be called the Canadarm3 as a nod to its predecessor. “Canadarm was essential to the space shuttle, Canadarm2 built the International Space Station, so it's only fitting and right that the arm that will repair and maintain the Lunar Gateway will yet again be made in Canada by Canadians,” added Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister. Canadarm3 will be capable of autonomously maintaining the Gateway even when astronauts aren’t home, and it could even operate science experiments in their absence. Much like its predecessor on the International Space Station, Canadarm3 would likely also tend to incoming and outgoing spacecraft, including but not limited to astronaut resupply missions and the likes. Related: NASA astronauts repair the International Space Station's Canadarm2 on a spacewalk mission Construction on the Moon-orbiting Gateway hasn’t started yet, but NASA purportedly aspires to begin and complete the project sometime in the 2020s. An official start date isn't yet set in stone, but the general goal is to have astronauts inhabiting the Gateway and conducting scientific experiments by the middle of the decade. Despite how close the Moon is to our planet, we still know very little about it. That said, global interest in lunar exploration continues to grow with each passing day, so it should be interesting to see what we might learn from large-scale collaborations like this one. Perhaps it will propel deep-space research, bringing humanity one step closer to the eventual goal of traveling to Mars. Source: BBC, CanadianPM

Making a bigger and badder rocket that can take mankind further into space has always been a big desire of those at NASA, and we’re one step closer as of this week. NASA has successfully conducted the test-firing of a booster on Tuesday at 11:05 AM EDT that will be used on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. This is a rocket so powerful that it may one day provide the means to transport humans to Mars. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls The U.S.-based space agency said that the primary ignition happened in Promontory, Utah, at Orbital ATK’s test facilities and that it would be the “last full-scale test” for this particular booster before NASA tests the SLS rocket on an unmanned mission in 2018. The booster wasn’t actually attached to a rocket assembly and launched into space; rather, it was tethered to the ground where the researchers were able to observe its performance in real time. "Today's test is the pinnacle of years of hard work by the NASA team, Orbital ATK and commercial partners across the country," said John Honeycutt, SLS Program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “SLS hardware is currently in production for every part of the rocket. NASA also is making progress every day on Orion and the ground systems to support a launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We're on track to launch SLS on its first flight test with Orion and pave the way for a human presence in deep space,” he continued. During the test, which is said to have lasted about two minutes, the booster’s propellant maintained a ~40º Fahrenheit temperature, although the actual combustion inside of the rocket reached up to 6,000º Fahrenheit. The propellant can reach as high as ~90º Fahrenheit in real-life use and still be okay. NASA engineers were present at the test site, using as many as 530 instruments of measure at a safe distance to collect data on the booster’s performance under these conditions and determine if any modifications would be necessary for the working order of the booster. Over the new few days and in the near future, engineers will evaluate the data and ensure everything looks kosher. The test was considered a success, but this is only the beginning for the booster. The first stage of the SLS rocket will be capable of carrying 77 tons of capacity, but future configurations of the rocket are expected to be able to carry 115 tons of capacity or more, which will require additional thrust. To see the test in action, watch the video shared on YouTube by NASA below: We still have a long time to come before we're ready to send humans to Mars, but creating a rocket powerful enough to push us that far out into space is certainly the beginning. Source: NASA, SLS

NASA’s InSight mission touched down on the Martian surface just over three months ago, and as you might come to expect, the lander has been somewhat busy setting up camp at its landing spot ever since. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR InSight began by deploying its seismometer instrument approximately one month after landing on Mars, but that was only the beginning. Another critical component of the InSight mission is to analyze Mars’ internal planetary temperatures with a heat flow probe called the Heat and Physical Properties Package. InSight’s heat flow probe is designed to operate at 16 feet (5 meters) underground, which means the lander will need to penetrate its way down into the surface if we should ever hope to capture viable measurements. NASA recently ordered InSight to commence this digging process, but as it would seem, those efforts have been halted due to unexpected complications. In a statement released just this week by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we learn that InSight’s heat flow probe made it approximately 75% of the way out of its protective housing before all progress came to a screeching halt. The instrument’s tip is being met with resistance from something beneath the Martian surface, such as a concealed rock or gravel. NASA specifically chose InSight’s particular landing spot because satellite imagery gave the impression that it would be mostly free of such obstructions; that said, looks can be deceiving. Given the circumstances, engineers are pumping the brakes a bit to re-analyze the situation, and with a little luck, perhaps they’ll discern a way to resolve the issue. “The mole is healthy and performed a round of hammering on the weekend. It has, thus far, continued to work against some resistance without clear evidence for progress,” elucidated Heat and Physical Properties Package principal investigator Tilman Spohn. “The team has therefore decided to pause the hammering for about two weeks to allow the situation to be analyzed more closely and jointly come up with strategies for overcoming the obstacle.” Related: Learn more about NASA's plan to drill deeper into the Martian surface than ever before Despite the apparent hurdle, NASA says the probe itself is working as designed and that it’s being calibrated as we speak by fluctuations in surface temperature through a property dubbed thermal conductivity. After it gets where it’s supposed to go, these calibrations will help NASA discern ordinary readings from unusual ones, and this will give scientists the data they’re looking for. It should be interesting to see how engineers will respond to the situation; after all, it’d be a crying shame if InSight couldn’t get its heat flow probe in place. Source: NASA JPL, DLR

Astronomers are on a constant search for exoplanets that have the potential to support life. One of the things we look for are host stars that look a lot like our Sun where the exoplanets are orbiting in what’s known as the “habitable zone.” After considering what we know about our own solar system, a new study suggests that it’s possible we’ve been looking at it all wrong. Perhaps we don’t need to be looking for younger stars, or stars like our Sun after all. As it turns out, older giant stars can create livable conditions on surrounding exoplanets just like younger stars can. Although, because the older stars are often larger than our Sun, it means that the habitable zone would have a different dynamic to it than we are accustomed to. The findings of this study, which were published in the Astrophysical Journal by astronomers from Cornell University, suggest that as stars get larger, the habitable zone moves outward to planets in the outer reaches of the system. This is because when a star gets larger, the inner planets become hotter and the outer planets will warm up too as a result. This melts any frozen ice and allows outer planets to host liquid water. “When a star ages and brightens, the habitable zone moves outward and you’re basically giving a second wind to a planetary system,” said Ramses M. Ramirez, research associate at Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute and lead author of the study. “Currently objects in these outer regions are frozen in our own solar system, like Europa and Enceladus – moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.” What we learn here is that even larger, older stars have the ability to support live, assuming exoplanets are orbiting the star’s current habitable zone. Younger stars have a much closer habitable zone, while older stars have a much further habitable zone. We can learn more about this model by studying our own solar system. In the current state of our solar system, Earth and Mars are currently residing in the habitable zone. But some day, when our Sun becomes older and turns into a red giant, Earth and Mars will be too close to the Sun to support life, and the habitable zone will be occupied by Jupiter and Saturn instead. “Long after our own plain yellow sun expands to become a red giant star and turns Earth into a sizzling hot wasteland, there are still regions in our solar system – and other solar systems as well – where life might thrive,” Lisa Kaltenegger, an associate professor, said. The model suggests that we need to be studying exoplanet systems with stars of all ages, and not just those that are similar to our Sun. By excluding other systems, we are missing out on potential discoveries that could change what we know about life in our universe. Source: Cornell University

In an unfortunate setback to NASA’s Artemis program, the space agency announced this morning that the Artemis II mission, which was originally scheduled for November of this year, has been postponed until September 2025, which also pushes back the Artemis III mission to September 2026. The Artemis II mission, which is slated to be the first crewed mission to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, is still slated to carry astronauts Reid Wiseman (NASA), Victor Glover (NASA), Chrsitina Koch (NASA), and Jeremy Hansen (Canadian Space Agency), with the crew still involved with heavy training as they prepare for the historic mission. This news unfortunately comes after NASA announced the United Arab Emirates will be providing the airlock for the Lunar Gateway, which will be space station in orbit around the Moon used to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface. The reason for the delays is due to further testing of hardware and spacecraft systems to ensure the safety of astronauts on future missions, which includes addressing concerns from the Orion capsule found during the Artemis I mission in November 2022, along with concerns about Orion’s heat shield, which teams discovered pieces of char layers that were lost during re-entry, and investigations are still ongoing. The heat shield is responsible for protecting the Orion capsule from the extreme temperatures during Earth re-entry. “Artemis is a long-term exploration campaign to conduct science at the Moon with astronauts and prepare for future human missions to Mars,” said Amit Kshatriya, who is the deputy associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development, and manager of NASA’s Moon to Mars Program Office. “That means we must get it right as we develop and fly our foundational systems so that we can safely carry out these missions. Crew safety is and will remain our number one priority.” Concerns for Artemis III, which is slated to be the first crewed lunar landing since 1972, could be further exacerbated since they are slated to use SpaceX’s Starship for their human landing system, which has only launched twice and was intentionally destroyed in midflight both times. Despite these setbacks, NASA remains committed to the Artemis program’s objectives of landing the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface, with landings planned to occur near the south pole of the Moon due to the potential water-ice deposits that exist within deep craters that haven’t been exposed to sunlight in potentially billions of years. Will these mission schedules be held, and what will the Artemis missions teach us about living and working on the Moon in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA, NASA (1), NASA (2), NASA (3), NASA (4), Labroots, NASA (5), SpaceX, NASA (6) Featured Image: NASA

Astronauts setting up a colony on the moon, or Mars, or some other planetary body will have a lot of tasks to perform. A European design consortium has developed a new kind of habitat called the Self-deployable Habitat for Extreme Environments (or SHEE). If the project works, then building their home away from home will be one task astronauts will not have to do. If all goes according to plan SHEE will be able to deploy and assemble a human habitat autonomously. SHEE is the brain child of architect Ondrej Doule, Doule an assistant professor at the Florida Institute of Technology's Human-Centered Design Institute in Melbourne, Florida. He gave a presentation on his idea to the 2015 meeting American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) at the end of last month. The premise behind the SHEE project is that humans doing construction on the surface of Mars or the moon would be extremely risky, complex, and costly. Therefore, when building human habitats and other facilities in these environments, it is only logical to use autonomous construction methods whenever possible. [##video##] When deployed, the SHEE habitat is a round structure. Some parts of it are rigid, some are inflatable, and some are robotic. The current design has five major functional areas: entrance ports, work areas, a kitchen, a toilet, and private crew quarters. The interior of the habitat can be custom-furnished and outfitted for different environments and missions, according to its developers. The SHEE project has received grants totaling 2.3 million euros (roughly 2.6 million dollars) from the European Union's Seventh Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration. "The lab tests are ongoing," Doule reports, "As with every prototype, there are issues that have to be addressed after first uses and transport, and also continuous integration that started in Estonia, so we are optimizing the system instantly.” When the system is ready, Doule intends to deploy the SHEE at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France to perform "no-humans-in-the-loop tests and operations”. The main purpose of these tests will be to verify that the SHEE can deploy itself and operate for up to 14 days in an extreme environment. "After that,” says Doule, “we will be developing procedural instructions … a user manual to ensure maximum safety and system lifetime.” The next phase will be testing in an off-earth analog. “The analog environment is located in Spain,” says Doule, “where the SHEE should serve as a base for human-robotic interaction tests. This is the place where the SHEE gets dirty for the first time, and we will discover its capacity to work in dusty environments with its inflatable seals.” According to Doule, the biggest challenges ahead involve the ability of the structure to stand up to extreme environments, and creating folding mechanisms for SHEE that aren’t prohibitively expensive. "That's yet to be discovered," he said. Double says that SHEE could be used not only off-world, but also here on Earth. Scientists, explorers and researchers, for example, could use SHEE as a base in extreme environments. Another possible use could be when housing is needed after a disaster of some sort. Source: Space.com

NASA’s sent its Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to Mars so that it could deploy a suite of state-of-the-art instruments capable of assisting planetary scientists in their ongoing quest to accumulate vital information about the planet’s physical dynamics. Upon making a successful landing in November of 2018, InSight immediately began deploying its instruments. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Among InSight’s most notably instruments are the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), which measures marsquakes in an attempt to better understand their origins, the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), made to dig itself 16 feet beneath the surface to detect heat sources emanating from the planet’s center, and the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), which uses an X-band radio to ascertain important details about Mars’ planetary rotation and interior. Most of InSight’s instruments deployed without a hitch, but the HP3 instrument, also sometimes referred to as ‘the mole’ for its digging characteristics, ran into trouble while attempting to dig beneath the planet’s surface. Rather than getting 16 feet under as it was supposed to, the instrument would continuously pop back up above the surface. Mission scientists determined that the soil at the InSight landing zone was different than initially expected, and that the mole didn’t have enough friction while digging. As it would seem, the soil wasn’t quite as loose and sandy as it was thought to be, and there was more duricrust – a type of static cemented soil with little give. Related: A summary of the InSight lander's progress as a mission Engineers worked around the clock in an attempt to resolve the problem, and a number of possible methods to get the mission back on track presented themselves. One method involved ‘pinning’ the InSight lander’s robotic arm against the side of the mole as it dug to help give it the friction it needed, while another involved pressing the robotic arm down directly on top of the mole as it dug. NASA attempted the first of the aforementioned methods to no avail and avoided progressing to the second because it carries the risk of damaging fragile ribbon cables at the top of the instrument. With options becoming severely limited, it now seems like there may be no other option but to try pressing down on the mole as it digs. Moving forward with this method could be a long and drawn-out process as NASA wants to avoid fraying the fragile cables. First, teams will attempt to position the robotic arm in such a way that it can avoid the cables as it presses down. Then, a brief test push will be commanded to see what happens. If everything goes according to plan, then the robotic arm could press down for longer durations to keep the mole from popping back out of the ground each time it attempts to dig. Depending on the progress that this method brings to the mole’s digging, mission scientists could maintain pressure on the mole or look at other options. It should be interesting to see if the mole will finally get into place so that it can perform its intended job. Source: NASA via Phys.org

Last year at this time a Dutch construction company called VolkerWessels released their plans to build roads from plastics recycled from ocean trash. The roads would require less maintenance than asphalt and would be able to withstand greater extremes of temperature– between -40C and 80C. Roads could be laid in a matter of weeks rather than months and last about three times as long, the company claimed. Additionally, the plastic roads would be lighter, reducing the load on the ground, and hollow, making it easier to install cables and utility pipelines below the surface. \ At the time, the PlasticRoad project was still at the conceptual stage, and the company hoped to be able to put down the first fully recycled road within three years. Rotterdam, a keen supporter of sustainable technology, had already signalled its interest in running a trial and Jaap Peters, from the city council’s engineering bureau, said: “We’re very positive towards the developments around PlasticRoad. Rotterdam is a city that is open to experiments and innovative adaptations in practice. We have a ‘street lab’ available where innovations like this can be tested.” So how has the PlasticRoad project progressed this last year? According to VolkerWessels’ website, not much has been publicized about the project’s current standing. Last year Rolf Mars, the director of VolkerWessels’ roads subdivision, KWS Infra, told The Guardian, “It’s still an idea on paper at the moment; the next stage is to build it and test it in a laboratory to make sure it’s safe in wet and slippery conditions and so on. We’re looking for partners who want to collaborate on a pilot – as well as manufacturers in the plastics industry, we’re thinking of the recycling sector, universities and other knowledge institutions.” It is uncertain if the project has been able to find those partners, as little can be found about the project since the revealment of its plans. However, at the time of this release, Mars was confident about the idea’s huge potential for future development, such as heated roads or ultra-quiet surfaces. He said: “As far as I know we’re the first in the world [to try this].” The VolkerWessels website explains: “The idea was conceived by looking at the problems that municipalities and we as contractors deal with. This includes societal problems, such as waste, combined with alternative materials for roads, as well as the future shortage of oil, which provides the most important component of asphalt: bitumen. Municipalities are looking for roads with little maintenance that last as long as possible. Other significant problems for municipalities are flooding (water storage), consolidations, cables and pipes. For contractors, asphalt is a great and sound product to build roads. However, contractors have to meet more and more demands concerning noise reduction, water permeability, and flatness. These questions and conditions were the inspiration which have led to the idea of the PlasticRoad.” Hopefully this project will receive support from partners and can move forward. Sources: VolkerWessels, The Guardian, Dutch News

The biggest obstacle in the quest to put manned missions into deep space has always been the time it takes to get there. With the current types of propulsion systems, it would take about nine months to get a spacecraft, crew and enough supplies for the trip, all the way to Mars. The technology exists to get there, however keeping a crew fed, healthy and sane on the way is the key problem. Solutions include inducing human stasis, having crewmembers rotate sleep and wake cycles and of course finding a propulsion system that can cut the travel time down. Using something else besides costly rocket fuel would be an advantage as well. Recently there has been a lot of talk about an EM drive, a power source that uses electromagnetic waves inside a closed engine to produce power. NASA is developing one at the Johnson Space Center and seeing some promising results. There is also a team at Dresden University of Technology in Germany that has tested their version of an EM drive, or as it's known a "resonant cavity thruster." Lead scientist for the project, Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, and his colleague G. Fiedler were in Orlando, Florida this week at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum where their findings were the subject of much discussion. Tajmar and his team reported that their model actually produced thrust similar to prior tests on other models, including the Eagleworks engine, built by NASA. Tamjar's study claims that his model was tested in the exact same conditions, but in his study, he was able to better eliminate errors and other interferences in the prior projects.But lets back up and take a look at how the concept works. First, electric power is used to generate microwaves inside the closed framework of the thruster. The microwaves then bounce around and the energy produced from that reaction creates thrust that can, in theory, propel a spacecraft. Estimates are that a spacecraft powered by an EM drive engine could make the trip to Mars in just 70 days. The project is not without it's detractors however.There is no exit point for the energy created to leave the thruster. In conventional rockets, the fuel heats up, produces thrust and then the propellant exits the engine so it can cool down and this after-burn balances the thrust. This is in line with Newton's Third Law of Conservation of Momentum. With the EM drive, there is no expelling of energy or burned fuel, so it violates this law and technically should not work.In an interview with io9, a Senior Research Physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, Eric W. Davis refutes the results of the German team saying that the thrust measured is likely a result of the device getting hot while operating. In talking about Tamjar's concluding paragraphs Davis said, "He also stated that he was still recording thrust signals even after the electrical power was turned off which is a huge key clue that his thrust measurements are all systematic artifact false positive thrust signals."While headlines around the world are saying that the "impossible" engine has been proven to work, the reality is that the findings of the German team remain preliminary and have yet to be peer-reviewed. What is not in question is that this theory is as revolutionary as the move from sail to steam was for ships and it demands a closer look from all sides.

In mid-July, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past the dwarf planet Pluto and captured high detail photographs of the surface. Although New Horizons sent back one good photograph already near the time of the flyby, we’ve known that there were still other images New Horizons captured that we wouldn’t receive until September. Well, the time is finally here, and as you might expect, NASA has started releasing some of them. The reason for the long wait is because New Horizons is incredibly far away from the Earth and it takes a while for the radio signals to get here. On the other hand, the wait is over; it’s September, and now NASA has received its first wave of high-detail photographs, which it has shared on Thursday on its News site. The photographs returned by New Horizons show some of the complex terrain details on Pluto, including the planet’s icy plains, craters, and more. The photographs were taken approximately 1100 miles above the dwarf planet’s surface, getting the New Horizons spacecraft close enough to picture even the slightest details. The high amounts of terrain detail in Pluto’s surface is surprising scientists, who once thought that it would be much less detailed than it really is. “Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. “If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that’s what is actually there.” Another scientist goes as far as to say that the dwarf planet has a surface just as complex as Mars. “The surface of Pluto is every bit as complex as that of Mars,” said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The randomly jumbled mountains might be huge blocks of hard water ice floating within a vast, denser, softer deposit of frozen nitrogen within the region informally named Sputnik Planum.” These pictures are a big deal. We’ve never once had the ability to get such clear shots of Pluto being that it’s so far away, and now we have the means to study the dwarf planet’s surface by way of these high-quality photographs. More photos below show off additional views of Pluto’s surface, as well as Pluto’s largest moon, Charon: New Horizons may be headed out into interstellar space, but it’s not done yet. NASA now wants to send New Horizons to a KBO (Kuiper Belt Object) known as 2014 MU69 where it hopes to learn even more about what’s out there. You also might want to check out some of the high detail photographs of Ceres that NASA just recently released compliments of the Dawn spacecraft. Source: NASA

One of NASA’s long-term goals is to send humankind into deep space to explore other parts of the solar system; this includes, but isn’t limited to, the neighboring planet Mars. But taking on such a feat means that the space agency will need to overcome a few challenges, and one of these includes trash management so that astronauts on the deep space spacecraft aren’t swimming in their own garbage. Image Credit: NASA On the International Space Station, the commercial capsules that deliver fresh supplies to crew members also serve as massive trash cans that take much of the astronauts’ waste back to Earth. But astronauts that visit distant worlds like Mars and beyond aren’t too likely to have this luxury at their disposal, so NASA will have to devise alternative arrangements. To find an adequate solution, the space agency is turning to experts in the United States’ commercial segment for ideas. They’ve published their needs in Appendix F of Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP). “NASA’s ultimate goal is to develop capabilities to enable missions that are not reliant on resupply from Earth thus making them more sustainable and affordable,” the space agency wrote. “NASA is implementing this by employing a capability-driven approach to its human spaceflight strategy. The approach is based on developing a suite of evolving capabilities that provide specific functions to solve exploration challenges. These investments in initial capabilities can continuously be leveraged and reused, enabling more complex operations over time and exploration of more distant solar system destinations.” Related: Russia and the United States will work together to create the first lunar space station Obviously, the trash that astronauts would accumulate during a deep space mission can’t stay on the spacecraft for the length of the mission. It would take up precious cargo space and present biological hazards to crew members. Furthermore, no one wants to litter the confines of outer space by simply dumping trash away in the middle of nowhere. Instead, NASA wants commercial companies to develop methods for compacting large amounts of trash, safely removing it from a spacecraft, recovering it in the future for potential recycling (such as converting it into fuel, etc.). As the space agency points out, the development will occur in two phases. In the first, NASA will hand-select volunteering companies to develop a conceptual trash management system and the necessary prototypes. During the second phase, NASA will require a working flight unit that can be deployed at the International Space Station for testing and demonstration by 2022. As of this writing, there’s no telling what the brilliant minds at NASA and the partnering commercial companies might come up with, but it’s sure to be an exciting development, to say the least. These efforts will push humanity forward as we seek to explore more of the solar system in person, rather than behind the lens of a camera. Source: NASA

We often affiliate plate tectonics with earthquakes, as we are all taught in school that the shifting of plates leads to big shakes. But plate tectonics serve a far more important job to the planet than creating earthquakes, as they are one of the key reasons why life exists on Earth. We recently explored why volcanoes are so awesome, and they’re awesome because of plate tectonics. While Earth is a very lively planet on the surface, underneath is where the real fun is happening, as about a dozen plates are constantly grinding, colliding, and diving beneath one another. Much like with volcanoes, plate tectonics is responsible for recycling materials from inside the Earth to the surface, keeping nutrients fresh for the ocean life to feed on. But what exactly is plate tectonics? Plate tectonics, also known as the theory of plate tectonics, consists of several independently-moving plates on the Earth that are all part of the layer of the Earth known as the lithosphere. These plates float on a deeper asthenosphere layer which has hot magma. These plates may move at a rate of two centimeters per year. While the theory seems simple enough, plate tectonics actually behave differently depending on their edges to one another. These edges are known as plate boundaries, and there are three types: divergent, convergent, and transform. A divergent boundary is the edge of two plates that are moving away from each other and are often responsible for causing volcanoes to form. A convergent boundary is on the edge of two plates that are colliding with each other and are often responsible for forming mountain ranges. A transform boundary is formed when the edges of two plates slide past each other and are responsible for earthquakes. While you might not think too much about it, plate tectonics play a much larger role in shaping this planet than you might realize, and the affects of their actions can be seen all around in the form of mountains and volcanoes. But plate tectonics are also responsible for life being on this planet, as they constantly recycle nutrients from within the planet’s interior to the surface. While plate tectonics might seem unique to Earth, the two other planets currently hypothesized to have plate tectonics are Venus and Mars. If life exists on this planet because of plate tectonics, why not there, too? As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: Quanta Magazine, Labroots, NASA, Lunar and Planetary Institute