U.S. space agency NASA received the final signal from its Cassini spacecraft, which ended a groundbreaking 13-year Saturn mission on Friday with a meteor-like plunge into the planet’s atmosphere, transmitting data until the final moment. Cassini, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, ended its mission at 7:55 a.m. EDT (1155 GMT), shortly after it lost contact with … [Read more...]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has a problem with the drilling mechanism
The Mars rover Curiosity of NASA stopped its ascension to a mountain that presents many cavities which might be habitable for the engineers who are in charge of the project to be able to solve a problem at one of its key-instruments, announces the scientists, informs Reuters. Curiosity landed on Mars after four years in order to determine if the planet that looks the most like … [Read more...]
Saturn’s rings – a cemetery of the Moons and of the small planets
The emblematic rings of the gigantic gaseous planet Saturn, as well as those less known of the gigantic Neptune and Uranus are made of pieces of raw material derived from all the planets like Pluto that remained for too long in the vicinity of these planets, being destroyed by the strong gravitational attraction developed by them, according to a new study. Astronomers believe … [Read more...]
SpaceX’s failure could really set the company back
The satellite was, in part, leased by Facebook as part of its project to deliver internet access to Sub-Saharan Africa, marking the social network's first foray into space-based internet delivery, in a partnership with the satellite company Eutelsat. "As I'm here in Africa, I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's... failure destroyed our satellite that would have … [Read more...]
A five year journey into space has now just begun
After almost a five year journey into deep space NASA's Juno spacecraft finally entered into Jupiter's orbit during a 35 minute engine burn. Over the next few months scientists and engineers will begin to calibrate the instruments on board the Juno Spacecraft. They expect to start collecting data and samples around October 2016. This mission has taken many decades to plan and … [Read more...]