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L’ESA va lancer le tout premier livestream depuis Mars
news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · 6 days ago - 15:19
Ce soir à 18h, les terriens vont pouvoir découvrir les premières images transmises en direct (ou presque) par la sonde Mars Express. Voici comment y assister.
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Admirer Mars en direct : n’est-ce pas la meilleure façon de finir la semaine ?
news.movim.eu / Numerama · 6 days ago - 15:05
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Sur Mars, Ingenuity a ghosté la NASA pendant six jours
news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · 6 days ago - 07:00
L'incroyable drone martien ne sera pas éternel, mais chacune de ces mésaventures facilitera la tâche de ses futurs successeurs.
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Étoiles filantes, Lune, élongation maximale de Vénus : que voir dans le ciel en juin 2023 ?
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Wednesday, 31 May - 14:03
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From fleeing Hitler to Mars: the scientist who changed space travel
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 28 May - 09:00
The remarkable journey of Ben Abeles will be celebrated next week by the opening of a new archive
Ben Abeles’ impact on science was out of this world. He helped develop alloys that were key components of the radioisotope generators that powered US robot space probes on their interplanetary journeys. Nasa was then able to reveal the wonders of the solar system, from the ancient river beds of Mars to the icy moons of Jupiter.
One of the devices is still in use, providing electricity for the Perseverance robot rover that currently trundles across the surface of the red planet.
Continue reading...
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Une sonde martienne fait semblant d’être un alien
news.movim.eu / Numerama · Thursday, 25 May - 13:37
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How NASA plans to melt the Moon—and build on Mars
news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 24 May - 14:17 · 1 minute
Enlarge / Mars Dune Alpha is the first structure built for NASA by the Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology team. (credit: ICON)
In June a four-person crew will enter a hangar at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and spend one year inside a 3D-printed building. Made of a slurry that—before it dried—looked like neatly laid lines of soft-serve ice cream, Mars Dune Alpha has crew quarters, shared living space, and dedicated areas for administering medical care and growing food. The 1,700-square-foot space, which is the color of Martian soil, was designed by architecture firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and 3D printed by Icon Technology.
Experiments inside the structure will focus on the physical and behavioral health challenges people will encounter during long-term residencies in space. But it’s also the first structure built for a NASA mission by the Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) team, which is preparing now for the first construction projects on a planetary body beyond Earth.
When humanity returns to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program , astronauts will first live in places like an orbiting space station, on a lunar lander, or in inflatable surface habitats. But the MMPACT team is preparing for the construction of sustainable, long-lasting structures. To avoid the high cost of shipping material from Earth, which would require massive rockets and fuel expenditures, that means using the regolith that’s already there, turning it into a paste that can be 3D printed into thin layers or different shapes.
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Chinese Mars rover sends back images of recent water-shaped crusts
news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 11 May - 22:02 · 1 minute
Enlarge / Orbital image of the Utopia Planitia region of Mars. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona )
Most of Mars appears to be an endless expanse of alien desert, without a river or lake in sight. However, liquid water definitely existed in the planet’s distant past . A new paper has also suggested that it's also possible small quantities of water still might exist in places that otherwise appear barren.
Before China’s Zhurong (also known as Phoenix) rover went into hibernation mode last May, researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered something unexpected. Zhurong was exploring the Utopia Planitia region, which is near the planet’s equator. No liquid water was thought to exist at those latitudes. Yet when the rover beamed back data from its Multispectral Camera (MSCam), Navigation and Terrain Camera (NaTeCam), and Mars Surface Composition Detector (MarSCoDe), there was possible evidence for liquid water having been present less than half a million years ago.
“[Our findings] suggest [features] associated with the activity of saline water, indicating the existence of water process on the low-latitude region of Mars,” the researchers said in a study recently published in Science Advances.
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The long-awaited mission that could transform our understanding of Mars
news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Saturday, 6 May - 11:19 · 1 minute
Enlarge (credit: NASA/JPL/Cal Tech)
March 17, 2022, was a rough day for Jorge Vago. A planetary physicist, Vago heads science for part of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars program. His team was mere months from launching Europe’s first Mars rover—a goal they had been working toward for nearly two decades. But on that day, ESA suspended ties with Russia’s space agency over the invasion of Ukraine. The launch had been planned for Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is leased to Russia.
“They told us we had to call the whole thing off,” Vago says. “We were all grieving.”
It was a painful setback for the beleaguered Rosalind Franklin rover, originally approved in 2005. Budget woes, partner switches, technical issues and the COVID-19 pandemic had all, in turn, caused previous delays. And now, a war. “I’ve spent most of my career trying to get this thing off the ground,” Vago says. Complicating things further, the mission included a Russian-made lander and instruments, which the member states of ESA would need funding to replace. They considered many options, including simply putting the unused rover in a museum. But then, in November, came a lifeline, when European research ministers pledged 360 million euros to cover mission expenses, including replacing Russian components.
