While too hot to support life, Kepler 78b is roughly the size of the Earth. CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(ENEWSPF)–October 31, 2013. In August, MIT researchers identified an exoplanet with an extremely brief orbital period: The team found that Kepler 78b, a small, intensely hot planet 400 light-years from Earth, circles its star[Read More…]
Space
Martian Box of Delights
Mars sample container EU–(ENEWSPF)–29 October 2013. This spherical container has been engineered to house the most scientifically valuable cargo imaginable: samples brought back from the Red Planet. Still probably many years in the future and most likely international in nature, a Mars sample-return mission is one of the most challenging[Read More…]
Planck on Course for Safe Retirement
Mapping the cosmic microwave background EU–(ENEWSPF)–21 October 2013. In preparation for its final switch-off on 23 October, mission controllers today fired Planck’s thrusters to empty its fuel tanks. The burn is one of the final steps to ensure that Planck ends its hugely successful mission in a permanently safe configuration.[Read More…]
Countdown to Launch of ESA’s Billion-Star Surveyor
EU–(ENEWSPF)–21 October 2013. ESA’s billion-star surveyor Gaia will be launched from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou on 20 November to begin a five-year mission to map the stars with unprecedented precision. Gaia’s main goal is to create a highly accurate 3D map of our Milky Way Galaxy by repeatedly observing a[Read More…]
Celebrating the Legacy of ESA’s Planck Mission
Data provides a new value for the age of the Universe: 13.8 billion years EU–(ENEWSPF)–18 October 2013. From the tiniest fraction of a second after the Big Bang to the evolution of stars and galaxies over 13.8 billion years, ESA’s Planck space telescope has provided new insight into the history[Read More…]
Finding Alien Worlds on Earth
Antarctic dry valleys stand in for Mars EU–(ENEWSPF)–17 October 2013. Have you ever wondered which places on Earth most resemble other planets? For some of us, imagining the landscape of other worlds might just be for fun, but scientists and engineers wonder about what the otherworldly places on Earth can[Read More…]
Rosetta: 100 Days to Wake-up
EU–(ENEWSPF)–11 October 2013. ESA’s comet-chasing mission Rosetta will wake up in 100 days’ time from deep-space hibernation to reach the destination it has been cruising towards for a decade. Comets are the primitive building blocks of the Solar System and the likely source of much of Earth’s water, perhaps even[Read More…]
Martian Scars
Hebes Chasma EU–(ENEWSPF)–10 October 2013. Ripped apart by tectonic forces, Hebes Chasma and its neighbouring network of canyons bear the scars of the Red Planet’s early history. ESA’s Mars Express has flown over this region of Mars on numerous occasions, but this new eight-image mosaic reveals Hebes Chasma in full[Read More…]
European Ground Stations Enable Galileo Search and Rescue Testing
Maspalomas station EU–(ENEWSPF)–8 October 2013. ESA’s completion of a pair of dedicated ground stations at opposite ends of Europe has enabled Galileo satellites in orbit to participate in global testing of the Cospas–Sarsat search and rescue system. The Maspalomas station, at the southern end of the largest island of the Canary[Read More…]
Scientists Generate First Map of Clouds On An Exoplanet
Kepler 7b (left), which is 1.5 times the radius of Jupiter (right), is the first exoplanet to have its clouds mapped. The cloud map was produced using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes. IMAGE: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MIT Boston, MA-(ENEWSPF)- On the exoplanet Kepler 7b, the weather is highly predictable, an[Read More…]
