ScientistPankaj: Mars rover Perseverance spots shiny silver litter on the Red Planet

Friday, June 17, 2022

Mars rover Perseverance spots shiny silver litter on the Red Planet

Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version

June 16, 2022

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The Launchpad

NASA's Artemis 1 moon megarocket faces huge test this weekend (again)

(Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

The Space Launch System megarocket that will fly NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission is at the pad for a critical series of tests this weekend.

Here's NASA update ahead of those tests, which together comprise a launch simulation known as a "wet dress rehearsal." It's NASA's latest attempt to actually fuel the rocket.

Full Story: Space (6/16)

Mars rover Perseverance spots shiny silver litter on the Red Planet (photo)

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

On Monday, NASA's Perseverance rover snapped a photo of a shiny silver object wedged between two rocks on the floor of the Red Planet's Jezero Crater, which the car-sized robot has been exploring since its February 2021 touchdown.

This space trash is not native to Mars; Perseverance hauled it from Earth, the rover's handlers said.

Full Story: Space (6/15)

The universe explained by All About Space magazine

(Future)

Inside All About Space issue 131, on sale now, discover everything you need to know about the universe from the Big Bang to its ultimate fate.

For this cover feature, All About Space meets the people behind the experiments searching for answers to how our universe began. From recreating the Big Band at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the particle-smashing Large Hadron Collider to observing the aftermath with the Space Science Institute in Maryland.

Full Story: Space (6/16)

POLL QUESTION:

Space Quiz: The Perseverance rover has found shiny litter on Mars. What IS it?

Learn the answer here!

A piece of thermal blanket from the rover's descent stage.

Part of an antenna from Perseverance's twin Curiosity.

Fragments of a message made by E.T.?

Debris from Perseverance's parachute from its Mars landing.

	Just the Facts, Ma'am "I stopped watching TV news a year ago, so sick of the bias everywhere. But in doing so, I was out of the loop. I decided to give 1440 a try & I've not been disappointed. Finally, Walter Cronkite style reporting! Just the facts. I also love that I can click a link to see more on many stories. Keep up the good work!" Join for free now.

Spaceflight

'Strawberry Supermoon' sparkles behind NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket

(Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

The destination for NASA's Artemis 1 mission looks big and bright in stunning new photos from the agency taken Tuesday.

In the new images, the full moon looms large behind Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In the foreground is the agency's first Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, which is scheduled to launch the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission around the moon later this year.

Full Story: Space (6/16)

Science & Astronomy

Fastest-growing black hole ever seen is devouring an Earth each second

(ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser)

The fastest-growing black hole ever seen is swallowing the mass equivalent of an entire Earth every second.

This gargantuan black hole has a mass 3 billion times that of the sun, and its rapid consumption is causing the behemoth to grow rapidly, an international research team found. The black hole gorges via a process called accretion, in which it siphons matter from a thin disk of gas and dust rotating around the massive object.

Full Story: Space (6/15)

SpaceX

SpaceX employees decry Elon Musk's 'embarrassing' behavior: report

(Jim Watson/Getty Images)

A group of anonymous SpaceX employees say that founder and CEO Elon Musk's recent behavior reflects badly on the company.

An open letter to company executives was posted in an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel with more than 2,600 employees, the Verge reported on Thursday (June 16). The letter asks the founder of SpaceX and Tesla to change his ways.

Full Story: Space (6/16)

Search for Life

Did China just detect signals from an alien civilization? Not likely.

(NAO/FAST)

The internet is abuzz with rumors that China may have picked up signals from an alien civilization. But don't get too excited.

"These signals are from radio interference; they are due to radio pollution from Earthlings, not from ET. The technical term we use is 'RFI' - radio frequency interference," one scientist said.

Full Story: Space (6/15)

Missing microbial poop in Venus clouds make life unlikely

Venus' atmosphere bears no signs of microbes eating or pooping, suggesting that the odd chemical composition of the planet's clouds cannot be explained by extraterrestrial life.

"If life was responsible for the sulfur dioxide levels we see on Venus, it would also break everything we know about Venus's atmospheric chemistry," Sean Jordan, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge and first author of the paper, said in the statement.

Full Story: Space (6/15)