Tag: Solar System
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JPL still trying to contact Opportunity rover on Mars
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Opportunity’s panoramic camera captured this self-portrait on Mars in 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ. NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover landed on Mars 15 years ago this week, but the long-lived robot remains out of action in the wake of a global dust storm last summer that caused it…
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JPL still trying to contact Opportunity rover on Mars
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Opportunity’s panoramic camera captured this self-portrait on Mars in 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ. NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover landed on Mars 15 years ago this week, but the long-lived robot remains out of action in the wake of a global dust storm last summer that caused it…
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Ultima Thule revealed in new detail with fresh flyby image
A new image captured minutes before NASA’s New Horizons probe zipped by a rocky object in the Kuiper Belt on New Year’s Day shows the dual-lobed world — nicknamed Ultima Thule — is covered with intriguing fractures and a large crater-like depression that could provide clues about the early history of the solar system. The…
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Ultima Thule revealed in new detail with fresh flyby image
A new image captured minutes before NASA’s New Horizons probe zipped by a rocky object in the Kuiper Belt on New Year’s Day shows the dual-lobed world — nicknamed Ultima Thule — is covered with intriguing fractures and a large crater-like depression that could provide clues about the early history of the solar system. The…
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OSIRIS-REx completes New Year’s Eve orbit insertion burn at asteroid
This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 15 miles (24 kilometers). Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona After four weeks of navigating in the vicinity of asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its thrusters for eight seconds Monday to slip into…
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Watch New Horizons probe ring in the New Year with record-setting Ultima Thule flyby
New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, stands alongside a scale model of the New Horizons spacecraft after a briefing on the Ultima Thule flyby. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) LAUREL, Md. — The sleeping bags are rolled out and the videos are cued up for a New Year’s…
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Farout! Astronomers identify the most distant known object in our solar system
An artist’s conception shows the distant object known as 2018 VG18 or “Farout.” (Carnegie Institution for Science Illustration / Roberto Molar Candanosa) Astronomers say they’ve discovered the most distant body ever observed in our solar system, a potential dwarf planet that’s about 11 billion miles from the sun. Its nickname? “Farout.” The far-out object —…
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NASA says its Voyager 2 probe has entered interstellar space, six years after Voyager 1
This illustration shows the positions of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Sizes and distances are not shown to scale. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) NASA says its…
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12 years after launch, New Horizons probe zeroes in on mysterious Ultima Thule
Artwork shows NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft silhouetted by the sun during its New Year’s Day encounter with an icy object, or objects, known as Ultima Thule. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Illustration / Steve Gribben) Act Two of the 12-year-old New Horizons mission to Pluto and the solar system’s icy Kuiper Belt is heating up, with…
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NASA picks Jezero Crater landing site for next Mars rover
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION On ancient Mars, water carved channels and transported sediments to form fans and deltas within lake basins. Examination of spectral data acquired from orbit show that some of these sediments have minerals that indicate chemical alteration by water. Here in Jezero Crater delta, sediments contain clays and carbonates.…