Tag: Decadal Survey
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Hints of life renew interest in Venus, and a private mission could lead the way
A synthesized false color image of Venus, using 283-nm and 365-nm band images taken by the Venus Ultraviolet Imager (UVI) on Japan’s Akatsuki orbiter. Credit: JAXA / ISAS / Akatsuki Project Team The announcement Monday of the discovery of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus — an indicator of possible life — has raised…
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Five years after New Horizons flyby, scientists assess next mission to Pluto
A composite of enhanced color images of Pluto (lower right) and Charon (upper left), taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it passed through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. This image highlights the striking differences between Pluto and Charon. The color and brightness of both Pluto and Charon have been processed identically to…
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SpaceX to debut satellite-dimming sunshade on Starlink launch next month
SpaceX plans to debut a new sunshade structure on its future Starlink satellites. Credit: SpaceX A new sunshade, or visor, designed to reduce the brightness of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband Internet satellites will debut on the company’s next launch, a measure intended to alleviate astronomers’ concerns about impacts on observations through ground-based telescopes, SpaceX founder Elon…
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Uranus, Neptune in NASA’s sights for new robotic mission
NASA’s Voyager 2 mission captured this image of Uranus during its January 1986 flyby, the only encounter with the distant ice giant. Credit: NASA NASA has asked scientists to assess how to design and fly robotic space probes to Uranus and Neptune, the last of the solar system’s classical planets yet to be orbited, likely…