Space News & Blog Articles

In early October, the third interstellar object (ISO) to visit our Solar System (3I/ATLAS) made its closest flyby to Mars, coming within 30 million km (18.6 million mi) of the Red Planet. This placed it within view of several missions currently operating there, which are operated by three space agencies: NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the China National Space Agency (CNSA). While the ESA released images taken by the Mars Express* and *ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), and China released images taken by the Tianwen-1 orbiter, NASA was unable to release any data due to the government shutdown.

Blue Origin just achieved another impressive milestone with its new heavy-launch vehicle, the partially reusable New Glenn rocket. On Thursday, Nov. 13th, during what was only the second launch of the New Glenn (NG-2), Blue Origin launched a NASA payload destined for Mars. This was the ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers) mission, a pair of twin satellites that will study how solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment and how this interaction drives atmospheric escape.

According to the leading theory of how the Earth-Moon system formed (the Giant Impact Hypothesis), a Mars-sized object (named Theia) collided with a proto-Earth 4.5 billion years ago. This turned both objects into molten lava, which eventually coalesced and cooled to form the Earth and Moon. Over time, the Moon migrated outward, eventually reaching its current, tidally locked orbit around Earth, where one side is permanently facing us. For decades, scientists have debated where Theia may have originated, whether it formed in the inner or outer Solar System.

The surface of the Earth is finite. We can measure it. If it was expanding, then its size would grow with time. And once again, good ol’ Earth helps us understand what the universe might be doing beyond our observable horizon.

Material science plays a critical role in space exploration. So many of the challenges facing both crewed and non-crewed missions come down to factors like weight, thermal and radiation tolerance, and overall material stability. The results of a new study from Young-Kyeong Kim of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and their colleagues should therefore be exciting for those material scientists who focus on radiation protection. After decades of trying, the authors were able to create a fully complete “sheet” of Boron Nitride Nanotubes (BNNTs).