Tag: SETI Institute

  • NASA Funds ‘Slingshot’ Concept to Survey Minerals Across Multiple Worlds

    NASA Funds ‘Slingshot’ Concept to Survey Minerals Across Multiple Worlds

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    NASA has awarded Phase I funding to Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys, a SETI Institute-led concept that would use a single 300-kilogram spacecraft to identify minerals on the Moon, a near-Earth asteroid and a Martian moon. The study will assess whether Raman spectroscopy can measure surface composition from 30–50 kilometers away, potentially helping future missions select…

  • Humans to Titan Summit Asks if Robots Go First

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    Will Humanoid Robots Reach Titan Before Humans Do? The first-ever Humans to Titan Summit, held June 11–12 in Boulder, Colorado, reached a conclusion that undercuts its own premise: AI-powered humanoid robots may be a more practical vanguard for Saturn’s largest moon than flesh-and-blood astronauts. Pascal Lee — chairman of the Mars Institute, planetary scientist at…

  • Roving chunk of space junk plunging back to Earth

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    WT1190F on Nov. 3. Credit: Bill Ryan at Magdalena Ridge Observatory. A long-lost fragment of space debris is falling toward Earth for a searing re-entry over the Indian Ocean on Friday, but the widely-watched event poses no risk to people. Nevertheless, aviation and maritime authorities have cautioned pilots and sailors to steer clear of the…