Space Stuff

Voyager 2 phones home and says everything is cool​

After sending the command, NASA had to wait 37 hours for a response.​

NASA lost contact with its Voyager 2 spacecraft—the second-most distant object ever built by humans and flung into space—nearly two weeks ago due to an errant command sent to the probe. This caused Voyager to point its antenna slightly away from Earth.
At the time, the space agency said it wasn't panicking. The mission's scientists believed they had several options to restore communications with the half-century-old probe. And so they did.
 
James Webb telescope picks up space question mark.
STScI-01H5309J2AAYSABKVQ89R7V44T-2.jpg
 

Mars keeps spinning faster every year, NASA InSight data says​

Radio signals from the lander help us track Mars' spin as it slowly shifts.​

Image of metal hardware on a dusty, reddish landscape.


To say Mars is a bizarre planet might be something of an understatement. It has nearly no atmosphere, has an unstable liquid metal core that causes it to wobble on its axis constantly, and as a frozen desert, is an oxymoron in itself. As if Mars wasn’t strange enough, data from NASA’s InSight Lander (RIP) has now revealed that the red planet is spinning faster and faster every year.
 

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into Moon​

Luna-25 blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, August 11, 2023

The Luna-25 craft blasted off from far-east Russia on August 11
BBC News, in London and Moscow

Russia's unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon after spinning out of control, officials say.
It was Russia's first Moon mission in almost 50 years.
The craft was due to be the first ever to land on the Moon's south pole, but failed after encountering problems as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.
It was set to explore a part of the Moon which scientists think could hold frozen water and precious elements.
 

Chandrayaan-3: India lunar rover Pragyaan takes a walk on the Moon​

An Isro image of the Chandrayaan-3 landing site taken after touchdown. One of the four legs of the lander is visible on the right
Soon after the touchdown, Isro released an image of the Chandrayaan-3 landing site with one of the four legs of the lander on the right

Presentational white space

India's Moon rover has taken first steps on the lunar surface a day after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the south pole.
Chandrayaan-3's rover "ramped down" from the lander and "India took a walk on the Moon!", the space agency said.
The Vikram lander successfully touched down as planned on Wednesday evening.
With this, India joins an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.
The 26kg rover called Pragyaan (the Sanskrit word for wisdom) was carried to the Moon in the Vikram lander's belly.
After the dust raised by last evening's landing had settled, panels on one side of Vikram opened to deploy a ramp to enable Pragyaan to slide down to the lunar surface.
It will now roam around the rocks and craters, gathering crucial data and images to be sent back to Earth for analysis.
 

James Webb telescope makes 'JuMBO' discovery of planet-like objects in Orion​

Orion Nebula, M42

Jupiter-sized "planets" free-floating in space, unconnected to any star, have been spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
What's intriguing about the discovery is that these objects appear to be moving in pairs. Astronomers are currently struggling to explain them.
The telescope observed about 20 pairs in a fabulously detailed new survey of the famous Orion Nebula.
They've been nicknamed Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, or "JuMBOs" for short.
One possibility is that these objects grew out of regions in the nebula where the density of material was insufficient to make fully fledged stars.
Another possibility is that they were made around stars and were then kicked out into interstellar space through various interactions.
 
I'm not saying it's aliens but...

What would signal life on another planet?​

The James Webb Space Telescope may help us find the answer.​

Surveying the atmospheres of planets beyond the solar system, such as those in the TRAPPIST-1 system (artist’s concept of four of the system’s seven planets shown), could turn up interesting molecules that might indicate life. But ruling out false positives will be a challenge.

Enlarge / Surveying the atmospheres of planets beyond the solar system, such as those in the TRAPPIST-1 system (artist’s concept of four of the system’s seven planets shown), could turn up interesting molecules that might indicate life. But ruling out false positives will be a challenge.

In June, astronomers reported a disappointing discovery: The James Webb Space Telescope failed to find a thick atmosphere around the rocky planet TRAPPIST-1 C, an exoplanet in one of the most tantalizing planetary systems in the search for alien life.
The finding follows similar news regarding neighboring planet TRAPPIST-1 B, another planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Its dim, red star hosts seven rocky worlds, a few of which are in the habitable zone—at a distance from their star at which liquid water could exist on their surfaces and otherworldly life might thrive.
What it would take to detect that life, if it exists, isn’t a new question. But thanks to the JWST, it’s finally becoming a practical one. In the next few years, the telescope could glimpse the atmospheres of several promising planets orbiting distant stars. Hidden away in the chemistry of those atmospheres may be the first hints of life beyond our solar system. This presents a sticky problem: What qualifies as a true chemical signature of life?
“You’re trying to take very little information about a planet and make a conclusion that is potentially quite profound—changing our view of the whole universe,” says planetary scientist Joshua Krissansen-Totton of the University of Washington.
To detect such a biosignature, scientists must find clever ways to work with the limited information they can glean by observing exoplanets.
 
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