News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
In a move that has been widely criticized, NASA leaders recently terminated a test project that allowed employees at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to display pronouns in their official agency identifiers. The decision affected more than 100 employees who saw their stated pronouns vanish from communication platforms. The project’s termination attracted public … Read more
On March 4 a four-metric-ton spent rocket stage will end its uncontrolled, 7.5-year voyage through space with a flourish: it will slam into the far side of the moon, close to the 570-kilometer-wide crater Hertzsprung, at about 9,300 kilometers per hour, creating a modest crater of its own. Earth is no stranger to space junk … Read more
China has had a bumper few years in space exploration, and its ambitions are about to get bolder. The China National Space Administration has released an overview of its plans for the next five years, which include launching a robotic craft to an asteroid, building a space telescope to rival the Hubble and laying the … Read more
Of the many “firsts” from NASA’s Apollo program of lunar exploration, one often overlooked is that the Apollo missions included the first—and so far only—times that humans have driven on another world. Presaging today’s eco-conscious market for carbon-neutral transportation, Apollo’s battery-powered lunar roving vehicles were all-electric as well. Astronaut David Scott, who was the first … Read more
One year ago NASA’s Perseverance rover plunged through the Martian atmosphere and safely landed in Jezero Crater, a 45-kilometer-wide gouge that scientists suspect once hosted a deep, long-lived lake. The rover’s ultimate target is near Jezero’s western edge: a large, fan-shaped pile of sediments that washed into the basin through a notch in the crater … Read more
In 2020, astronomers thought they’d found something incredible: the second so-called Earth Trojan asteroid ever seen. Now, a new team of researchers has confirmed that it’s real. Trojan asteroids are small space rocks that share their orbit with a planet, circling whatever host star that planet does in a stable orbit. While we have spotted Trojan asteroids … Read more
Uranus is pale blue in colour while Neptune is a deeper shade of blue, and an atmospheric model can explain the difference Space 28 January 2022 By Will Gater Uranus (left) and Neptune (right) imaged by Voyager 2 NASA/JPL-Caltech Uranus and Neptune are different shades of blue, and we may finally know why. In visible-light … Read more
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has some rocks stuck in its throat. Perseverance drilled and collected its sixth Red Planet rock sample late last month, but the car-sized rover hasn’t been able to seal up the titanium tube containing the material yet. “I recently captured my sixth rock core and have encountered a new challenge. Seems some … Read more
Mimas doesn’t show any hints of liquid water, and it seems impossible that it could have an ocean under its surface, but that’s exactly what a new set of simulations suggest Space 11 January 2022 By Leah Crane Mimas, a moon of Saturn, imaged by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Saturn’s moon Mimas may … Read more
After several tense days of unfurling and clicking its various parts into place, the biggest and most sophisticated space telescope ever launched is now complete. On 8 January, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope slowly swung the last 3 of its 18 hexagonal mirror segments into position, locking them together into one 6.5-metre-wide, gold-coated cosmic eye. … Read more