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Showing posts with the label Planetary Observation

China Makes History Again: Chang'e-6 Returns with Groundbreaking Moon Samples

In a remarkable achievement, China has successfully collected samples from the far side of the moon, marking a significant milestone in space exploration. The Chang'e-6 mission, launched on May 3, touched down in the Apollo crater within the vast South Pole-Aitken basin on June 1. During its brief but productive stay, the spacecraft gathered approximately 2 kilograms of lunar material using a scoop and drill. The samples, now stored in an ascent vehicle, are expected to return to Earth on June 25, landing in Inner Mongolia. This historic achievement not only demonstrates China's space program prowess but also provides scientists with a unique opportunity to unravel the mysteries of the moon's formation and evolution.   Achievements: - *First-ever samples from the far side*: Chang'e-6 successfully collects lunar material from the moon's less-explored hemisphere. - *Second successful farside landing*: China builds on its 2019 achievement with...
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All You Need to Know About ESA's JUICE Mission

Over the past decades, Jupiter has also been one of the favourite planets that astronomers and space scientists are looking to investigate. The reasons for interest in Jupiter by astronomers and space scientists are many. Not only Jupiter will answer many questions related to the origin of the solar system and emergence of life, but the presence of water bodies on Jupiter’s three moons (‘Ganymede’, ‘Europa’ and ‘Callisto’) has also caught the eye of various space agencies and has built the enthusiasm in them to explore the Jupiter. Being one of the largest planets in our solar system and mostly made up of Helium and Hydrogen, it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky after Moon and Venus. Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer”, abbreviated as “Juice” is the spacecraft in the development phase to explore the Icy moons of Jupiter, and Jupiter itself. The “European Space Agency” has given the contract to “Airbus Defence and Space” company for its design. The spacecraft will be a...
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Two Strange Glass Sphere Spotted on the Far Side of the Moon

China's Yutu 2 rover has made yet another curious discovery during its travels on the far side of the moon, this time turning up a pair of translucent glass globules. Xiao described the new finds as the "first discovery of macro-sized translucent glass globules on the moon." Finding these spheres on the moon suggests that impact events on the other planetary bodies could also form similar impact glasses, Xiao said. And on the moon, Xiao said that such glass spheres should be commonly produced by ancient impacts and could be valuable for understanding early lunar impact history.  Xiao and his team believe the small spheres, which are between 0.59 and 0.79 inches (1.5 to 2.5 centimeters) across, were probably formed by relatively recent meteor impacts. Specifically, the researchers believe that the globules formed from anorthosite, a volcanically-formed rock rich in the mineral feldspar, after a high-energy impact melted the rock and ref...
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Structure of the Universe

The structure of the universe is a complex and fascinating topic that has intrigued scientists and laypeople alike for centuries.  It is a vast expanse of space that contains everything that we know of, from stars and planets to galaxies and superclusters. Understanding the structure of the universe is essential to understanding our place in it and the fundamental laws of nature that govern it. At the largest scale, the universe appears to be homogeneous and isotropic, meaning that it appears the same in all directions and at all points in space. This is known as the cosmological principle. However, at smaller scales, the structure of the universe is highly varied and complex. The basic building blocks of the universe are subatomic particles, such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. These particles combine to form atoms, which in turn combine to form molecules, and so on. At larger scales, these molecules combine to form stars, planets, and other celestial bodies. The universe is...
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Who is James Webb NASA?

James Webb, in full James Edwin Webb, (born October 7, 1906, Tally Ho, North Carolina, U.S.—died March 27, 1992, Washington, D.C.), American public servant and administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Apollo program (1961–68). After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1928, Webb became a marine pilot. He began his government career in 1932 as a congressional aide in Washington, D.C., and from 1934 to 1936 he studied law at George Washington University. He worked for Sperry Gyroscope from 1936 to 1944, when he reentered the Marine Corps for the remainder of World War II. During the administration of Pres. Harry Truman (1945–53), Webb was director of the Bureau of the Budget and undersecretary of state. When Truman left office, he went to work for the Kerr-McGee Oil Company in Oklahoma. Webb became the administrator of NASA in 1961, just months before Pres. John F. Kennedy announced the U.S. commi...
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Jupiter Like Planet Discovered By NASA's Citizen Scientist

The signature for the newly discovered planet was hiding in data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. Using TESS data, scientists look for changes in brightness of nearby stars, which could indicate the presence of orbiting planets. Jacobs is part of a group of citizen scientists who look at plots of TESS data, showing the change in a star’s brightness over time, in search of new planets. While professional astronomers use algorithms to scan tens of thousands of data points from stars automatically, these citizen scientists use a program called LcTools, created by Alan R. Schmitt, to inspect telescope data by eye. That’s why Jacobs’ group, which includes several citizen scientists and two veteran astronomers, calls themselves the Visual Survey Group. Many of them met while working on Planet Hunters, a NASA-funded citizen science project through Zooniverse that focused on data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. On February 1, 2020, Jacobs happened to notice a plot ...
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