Nasa has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen. In its first activation, the toaster-sized instrument dubbed “MOXIE”, short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment, produced about five grams of oxygen, equivalent to roughly 10 minutes’ worth of breathing for an astronaut.
A teacher from Karachi, Aimun Faisal on Wednesday posted her students’ questions to NASA on Twitter and her post went viral after scientists and astronauts responded to the queries. It all began with a class activity where the fourth grade teacher at Karachi’s Cornerstones School asked her students to write down questions about the solar system.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has warned of a massive asteroid, travelling at the speed of 48,000 kilometres per hour, is expected to whiz past Earth this week. According to NASA, “Asteroid 2020 ND” will move past Earth on July 24. Two other asteroids are also expected to whiz past Earth on Sunday named 2016 DY30 and 2020 ME3.
Two veteran NASA astronauts were headed for the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday in Elon Musk’s SpaceX flight.. Elon Musk’s SpaceX became the first commercial company to launch a rocket carrying humans into orbit, ushering in a new era in space travel. SpaceX’s two-stage Falcon 9 rocket with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard blasted off flawlessly in a cloud of bright orange flames and smoke from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center for a 19-hour voyage to the space station.
NASA said that its planet hunter satellite TESS discovered an Earth-sized planet within the habitable range of its star, which could allow the presence of liquid water. Named “TOI 700 d”, the planet is relatively close to Earth — only 100 light years away. Star TOI 700 is small, about 40 percent of our Sun’s size and only about half as hot.
Wreckage of India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission was spotted by a Nasa satellite orbiting the moon, the US space agency revealed. Vikram lander crashed on the lunar surface in September. Nasa released an image taken by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that showed the site of the spacecraft’s impact and associated debris field, with parts scattered over almost two dozen locations spanning several kilometres.
A technical snag, less than an hour before blast off shattered India’s dreams to become the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on the Moon. The launch system of the Chandrayaan-2 — or Moon Chariot 2, experienced some technical problem and a revised date for the launch will now be announced by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).