November 2018
BepiColombo – a mission to explore Mercury
...can help scientists understand how Earth was formed, how it evolved, and how it interacts with the Sun. Therefore, in order to understand Mercury, BepiColombo will address a comprehensive set of scientific questions in order to gain further knowledge...
March 2015
Dawn of ion propulsion
...to lower levels now that Dawn is much farther from the Sun, the spacecraft will have accumulated about 5.5 years of total... of paper Three years ago, the spacecraft’s path around the sun was exactly the same as Vesta’s. Achieving that perfect match was...
19 May 2021
Scientists unexpectedly find heavy metal vapour in comets throughout our Solar System, and beyond
... in the cores of comets are metals. These are not usually seen, especially not far from the Sun, as solid metals don’t usually “sublimate” (become gaseous) at low temperatures. However, in a new study by a Belgian team using...
February 2016
Nuclear Flashlamps in Space
...is a notionally spherical cloud of small bodies that orbit the Sun within interstellar space, at distances of a large fraction of a... by humanity are puny compared to a star Both the Sun and the nuclear explosion emit radiation over a broad wavelength ...
August 2017
Big science from small spacecraft
... to explore in our Solar System with smaller spacecraft? The Sun is an obvious target, since we can cost-effectively send ..., including its interaction with the solar wind. Observing our Sun The Sun is a massive, roiling, dynamic object at the centre ...
January 2019
Saving humanity – is space up to the job?
...not exist except for the protection that our atmosphere and ozone layer provide us against the Sun’s radiation. Modern society is heavily dependent on a sophisticated electronic infrastructure that is highly vulnerable to cosmic dangers. Solar storms...
