Science
Stories about the wondrous world of space science.
Biden Administration Highlights Climate, DEI Efforts
The Biden administration hosted a pair of events last week showcasing two of its top priorities for space: fighting climate change and promoting diversity in the industry. A warming climate: On Wednesday morning, NASA hosted a ribbon cutting for its Earth Information Center, an interactive exhibit at the space agency’s HQ in DC that’s been…
Euclid to Launch July 1 on a Mission to Study Dark Energy
Euclid, ESA’s dark energy surveyor satellite, is slated to launch July 1 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, the space agency announced this week. Ministry of magic: The spacecraft, named after the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, will map the cosmos in 3D and study how dark energy shapes the universe. Scientists hope the data will…
NASA Taps Top Scientist for Crewed Moon Return
Noah Petro will be the science lead for Artemis III, which aims to return humans to the Moon by mid-decade, officials announced last week during NASA’s Artemis town hall briefing at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). Petro is the project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The satellite’s observations have helped…
Blue Origin Plans Interplanetary Initiatives
Blue Origin is opening up about some of its latest interplanetary work. Last week, the Washington company announced two science initiatives supporting humanity’s efforts to push outward into the cosmos. On Thursday, NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract to provide launch services for the ESCAPADE mission to study the magnetosphere of Mars. And on Friday,…
BardAI Incorrectly Answers JWST Question
The brave new world of large language models (LLMs) has finally dealt us a space angle. This week, accompanying a Paris event to preview its new Bard chatbot, Google released an ad about the ChatGPT competitor. The issue? Bard confidently shared an incorrect answer about JWST. The incorrect answer, first shared Monday but widely circulated…
SpaceX Launches Transporter-6 Mission with Stacked Manifest
For the first orbital launch of 2023, SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission launched 114 small satellites into orbit. The spacecraft on the manifest ranged from cubesats to hosted payloads to orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs). The Transporter satellite rideshare missions increasingly remind us of nesting dolls, as they launch space vehicles that in turn deploy even more space…
Space Science News 2022 Recap
Here we are, in the final weeks of 2022, having learned so much about the vast, mysterious universe we live in. Here’s a recap of some of the biggest moments in space science this year. Eyes on the sky Last Christmas, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope in its mission to, as the agency…
ESA Gets Nearly 17% Funding Boost
‘Twas a busy time in Paris last week. The European Space Agency announced a new cohort of astronauts and announced a budget of €16.9B for the next three years. The sum falls short of the €18.5B requested by the agency, but still represents a 17% increase over the prior period. Lots of 17s last week: …
Artemis I Cubesats Fail to Power Up
Since launching on November 16, the Artemis I core mission has gone off practically without a hitch (unless you count damage to the elevator doors near the pad as a vital loss). SLS successfully carried the Orion capsule out of the Earth’s atmosphere and sent it on its trajectory to the Moon, where it made…
SpaceX and NASA Explore Raising Hubble’s Orbit
Hubble needs a boost, and SpaceX has stepped up to provide it. Yesterday, NASA and SpaceX announced that they’ve teamed up through an unfunded Space Act agreement to conduct a feasibility study into whether a crewed commercial mission could boost Hubble’s orbit and extend its lifetime. Hubble: an abridged history When the Hubble space telescope…
DART Strikes the Asteroid Dimorphos for Planetary Defense
At last, justice for the dinosaurs. Last night, NASA’s first planetary defense mission ended with a bang. Years in the making, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos. With DART, NASA hopes to test whether it would be possible to protect our pale blue dot from potential oncoming planet-killing asteroids…
How to Watch NASA’s Planetary Defense Mission
NASA is prepping for the day it may have to defend the Earth against an oncoming threat. Today, it’s taking a sci-fi approach: smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid hurtling through space to try and knock it off its course. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has been on the long journey to its target…
Planet, Microsoft, and Nature Conservancy Launch Renewable Energy “Atlas”
What do you get when Planet, Microsoft, and the Nature Conservancy walk into a bar? Probably some pretty wonky and in-the-weeds convos, but also, the potential for a productive collab. To that end, the three organizations have just lifted the wraps on the Global Renewables Watch (GRW). They describe the tool as “a first-of-its-kind living…
