January 2023
Space sustainability imperative
... we are messing up Earth’s environment – come from satellite observations and data. The shrinking of the polar ice caps, for example, can only realistically be monitored from Earth orbit: it is a unique vantage point from which to monitor...
22 December 2017
Where is NASA going next?
... to develop cost-effective techniques that limit spacecraft contamination and thereby enable life detection measurements on cost-capped missions, while the VICI mission concept will look at developing the Venus Element and Mineralogy Camera...
02 February 2018
How a year in space affects your body
... return to Earth. Just as interesting was an investigation that focused on telomeres – a compound structure that protects or “caps” the ends of chromosomes against deterioration. These typically decrease in length as a person ages. However, Susan...
28 March 2018
Woes for Webb as the space telescope is delayed again
... $8 billion it was allocated by U.S Congress for the development of Webb. If the project goes beyond the $8 billion cost cap, the space telescope will have to be reauthorised by Congress and the potential for further delays increases. But...
08 April 2019
Rain on the Sun links long-standing solar mysteries
... simulations had predicted that the coronal rain should be found in a solar feature called helmet streamers; large cap-like coronal structures with long pointed peaks that extend high into the corona and can...
20 May 2019
A thin layer of ice-trapped gas stops Pluto's oceans from freezing
...’s temperature and ice shell thickness over time. Their results, say the team, suggest that this cap of caged molecules would act as a highly viscous thermal insulator between a subsurface ocean and an ice shell to keep...
