Moon Exploration and Science News

March 22, 2013

Los Alamos science sleuth on the trail of a Martian mystery
The Woodlands TX (SPX) Mar 21, 2013
When it comes to examining the surface of rocks on Mars with a high-powered laser, five is a magic number for Los Alamos National Laboratory postdoctoral researcher Nina Lanza. During a poster session at the 44th Annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, Texas, Lanza described how the laser-shooting ChemCam instrument aboard the Curiosity rover currently searching the surface of Mars for signs of habitability has shown what appears to be a common feature on the surface of some very ... read more

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NASA's LRO Sees GRAIL's Explosive Farewell Many spacecraft just fade away, drifting silently through space after their mission is over, but not GRAIL. NASA's twin GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) spacecraft went out in a blaz ... more		Amazon's Bezos recovers Apollo 11 engines Amazon founder Jeff Bezos claimed success Wednesday in his mission to recover Apollo 11 moon mission engines that plunged into the ocean decades ago. ... more		Goldstone Radar Snags Images of Asteroid 2013 ET A sequence of radar images of asteroid 2013 ET was obtained on March 10, 2013, by NASA scientists using the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., when the asteroid was ... more
				Curiosity Mars Rover Sees Trend in Water Presence NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has seen evidence of water-bearing minerals in rocks near where it had already found clay minerals inside a drilled rock. Last week, the rover's science team announ ... more		Leaping Lunar Dust Electrically charged lunar dust near shadowed craters can get lofted above the surface and jump over the shadowed region, bouncing back and forth between sunlit areas on opposite sides, according to ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

ChemCam data abundant at Planetary Conference Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team will present more than two dozen posters and talks next week during the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlan ... more		First Laser Communication System Integrated, Ready for Launch A new NASA-developed, laser-based space communication system will enable higher rates of satellite communications similar in capability to high-speed fiber optic networks on Earth. The space t ... more		Trump says 'very dangerous' for UK to deal with China Denmark hails 'very constructive' meeting with US over Greenland Where does Iraq stand as US turns up heat on Iran?		China sets moon mission re-entry test China says it will conduct re-entry tests before 2015 of a spacecraft to be used in a mission to have a lunar explorer probe bring lunar soil samples to Earth. ... more
				Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project Seeks Public Support To Retrieve Apollo Era Moon Images The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is seeking support from the public as it continues its efforts to recover and enhance Moon images from the 1960s using modern technology. The L ... more		NASA's SDO Observes Earth, Lunar Transits in Same Day On March 2, 2013, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) entered its semiannual eclipse season, a period of three weeks when Earth blocks its view of the sun for a period of time each day. On ... more

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CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

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Lunar impacts created seas of molten rock Early in the Moon's history an ocean of molten rock covered its entire surface. As that lunar magma ocean cooled over millions of years, it differentiated to form the Moon's crust and mantle. But ac ... more		Rhea Rev 183 Raw Preview NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured these raw, unprocessed images of Saturn's moon Rhea during a close flyby on March 9, 2013. This flyby marks the mission's last targeted encounter with Rhea and onl ... more		Polar bears bulk up despite melting Norwegian Arctic: study US finalizes rule for deep-sea mining beyond its waters China executes 11 linked to Myanmar scam compounds		Cassini Makes Last Close Flyby of Saturnian Moon Rhea NASA's Cassini spacecraft will be swooping close to Saturn's moon Rhea on Saturday, March 9, the last close flyby of Rhea in Cassini's mission. The primary purpose will be to probe the interna ... more
				China targeting navigation system's global coverage by 2020 China's homegrown navigation system BeiDou is expected to achieve full-scale global coverage by around 2020, a leading scientist told Xinhua on Sunday. The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System ( ... more		A Window into Europa's Ocean Right at the Surface If you could lick the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, you would actually be sampling a bit of the ocean beneath. A new paper by Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technol ... more

Sun in the Way Will Affect Mars Missions in April

NASA's next Mars mission invites public to come aboard

Los Alamos science sleuth on the trail of a Martian mystery

'Hot Spots' Ride a Merry-Go-Round on Jupiter

Rhea Rev 183 Raw Preview

Cassini Makes Last Close Flyby of Saturnian Moon Rhea

'Vulcan' wins Pluto moon name vote

Public to vote on names for Pluto moons

The PI's Perspective: The Seven-Year Itch

NASA's LRO Sees GRAIL's Explosive Farewell

Amazon's Bezos recovers Apollo 11 engines

Leaping Lunar Dust

	Chinese probe in breakthrough outer space travel China's second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, has arrived in outer space about 20 million km from the Earth, marking a new breakthrough in the nation's efforts for deep space exploration, Chinese scientis ... more		Dawn forging through the main asteroid belt The indefatigable Dawn spacecraft is continuing to forge through the main asteroid belt, gently thrusting with its ion propulsion system. As it gradually changes its orbit around the sun, the distan ... more		China to use modified rocket for moon landing mission A rocket expert said Friday that China has developed a modified model of the Long March-3B carrier rocket for an upcoming moon landing mission to be completed by the Chang'e-3 moon orbiter. Th ... more		Water On The Moon: It's Been There All Along Traces of water have been detected within the crystalline structure of mineral samples from the lunar highland upper crust obtained during the Apollo missions, according to a University of Michigan ... more

Maersk to take over Panama Canal port operations from HK firm

Britain's Starmer seeks to bolster China ties despite Trump warning

Artist chains up thrashing robot dog to expose AI fears

Waste Dump at the End of the World		Cassini Sees Titan Cooking up Smog		Building a lunar base with 3D printing

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