“NASA’s EMIT mission has created the first comprehensive maps of the world’s mineral dust-source regions, providing precise locations of 10 key minerals based on how they reflect and absorb light. When winds loft these substances into the air, they either cool or warm the atmosphere and Earth’s surface, depending on their composition. Understanding their abundance around the globe will help researchers predict future climate impacts.”
From NASA.
“Sometime this week, a 1-metre-wide capsule will fall from the sky and land in the South Australian desert carrying a cargo of drugs.
Since launching on a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on 14 January, a reactor on board the capsule has been manufacturing an undisclosed, proprietary pharmaceutical compound.
Varda, the US-based company that built the capsule, is aiming to show that producing drugs in low Earth orbit is cost-effective and offers advantages over manufacturing them on the ground.”
From New Scientist.
“NASA’s newest space telescope, SPHEREx — designed to seek out the key ingredients for life in the Milky Way — and a sun-focused mission called PUNCH are on their way to space.
Both missions lifted off together aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 11:10 p.m. ET (8:10 p.m PT) Tuesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California…
SPHEREx, or the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, aims to shed light on how the universe has evolved and find where life’s key ingredients originated in the cosmos.
PUNCH, or Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, will study how the sun affects the solar system. The mission will observe the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, called the corona, and study solar wind, or the energized particles that emerge in a steady stream from the sun.”
From CNN.
“A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth’s celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.
Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company’s Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.”
From Associated Press.
“Two US spacecraft launched to the Moon today from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, on their way to hunt for water that scientists think exists at the lunar south pole. What the craft finds could have big ramifications for NASA’s plans to send astronauts to this part of the Moon in the coming years.
Lunar water could provide a resource for expanded lunar exploration, such as by supplying the raw ingredients for rocket fuel at Moon bases. Scientists have known since 2009 that such water exists, but they want to know much more about where it is and how much there is. The two new spacecraft ‘are going after really important pieces of that puzzle’, says Parvathy Prem, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.”
From Nature.
