Colombian robotics expert Daniela Osorio Payan Daniela Osorio Payan A 19-year-old Colombian mechatronics prodigy has applied her talents to a edible mushroom project that could help future astronauts avoid vitamin D deficiency. Daniela Osorio “Dani” Payán, an analog astronaut and Mechatronics Engeering student at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente in Cali, Colombia explains that she’s …
Inside the Gruta do Natal, a network of underground lava caves on the Azores Island of Terceira Bruce Dorminey Somewhat akin to astronomical dark matter (the unseen stuff thought to make up some 80 percent of all matter in the cosmos), so-called microbiological ‘dark matter’ here on Earth poses almost as much of a conundrum …
NASA will exchange no messages with its fleet of Mars rovers and orbiters because of the red … [+] planet’s solar conjunction. Getty Space agencies in the U.S., Europe and China have temprarily lost contact with a vast fleet of spacecraft at Mars. That includes three rovers, one helicopter and seven orbiters. The cause is …
NASA’s Mars exploration robots will be on their own for the next two weeks while the space agency waits out a natural phenomenon that will prevent normal communications. Mars and Earth have reached positions in their orbits that put them on opposite sides of the sun, in an alignment known as solar conjunction. During this …
Team trekking to cave near Myvatn, Iceland. Agustín Martínez There are likely two great universal truths about astrobiology. Most life in the universe is expected to be unicellular (single-celled). And just because a certain region of a planet or moon is habitable doesn’t mean it’s inhabited. Even so, there’s a whole new generation of geomicrobiologists …
Mars Base Camp Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Configuration Lockheed Martin When humans finally go to Mars is it better to do it step-by-step, by first building a so-called Mars-orbiting Base Camp as most-recently proposed by Lockheed Martin? Or is it best to use the Mars Direct strategy? The Mars Direct idea would use existing technology to …
Data from a meteorite impact on Mars that was recorded by NASA’s InSight lander in 2021 is now helping to clear up some confusion about the red planet’s interior makeup. A pair of studies published today in the journal Nature separately determined that Mars’ iron-rich core is smaller and denser than previous measurements suggested, and …
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/51/b8/51b81e71-f087-4f6e-85b8-83a95362a486/main_planetmars-vallesmarineris- "The Seven Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made by Exploring Mars | Science")
At an average of 140 million miles away, Mars is pretty much in Earth’s planetary backyard. With a well-timed launch, a rocket can reach it in less than a year. Since 1965, humankind has successfully sent over 20 missions—flybys, orbiters, landers, rovers—to survey Mars’s dusty terrains. And we’ve learned a lot about our neighbor, from …
We usually experience Mars through still images, whether snapped by rovers on the rocky surface or taken by orbiting spacecraft from above. The European Space Agency created an epic visualization that shows what it would be like to visit the red planet and soar over a fascinating, complicated landscape. The video covers part of Noctis …
Topline NASA launched its Psyche spacecraft aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center Friday morning en route to study a metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche, that lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – OCTOBER 13: In this handout provided by NASA, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy …