KREUZADER (Posts tagged space)

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
“The bright white region of this image shows the icy cap that covers Mars’ south pole, composed of frozen water and carbon dioxide. While it looks smooth in this image, at close quarters the cap is a layered mix of peaks, troughs and flat plains, and...

The bright white region of this image shows the icy cap that covers Mars’ south pole, composed of frozen water and carbon dioxide. While it looks smooth in this image, at close quarters the cap is a layered mix of peaks, troughs and flat plains, and has been likened in appearance to swiss cheese.

The southern cap reaches some 3 km thick in places, and is around 350 km in diameter. This icy region is permanent; in the martian winter another, thinner ice cap forms over the top of it, stretching further out across the planet and disappearing again when the weather warms up.

esa mars mars express space
“ NASA performed the first Near-Earth Object Human Space Flight Accessible Targets Study (NHATS) in September/October of 2010, and 666 of the known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) were identified as meeting the NHATS criteria for mission accessibility...

NASA performed the first Near-Earth Object Human Space Flight Accessible Targets Study (NHATS) in September/October of 2010, and 666 of the known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) were identified as meeting the NHATS criteria for mission accessibility (classifying those NEAs as “NHATS-compliant”). These are asteroids in near-Earth orbits that are more dynamically accessible (requiring less time and energy to visit) than round-trip spacecraft missions to Mars.

nasa space asteroids
“An experimental vehicle to develop an autonomous European reentry capability for future reusable space transportation has completed its mission. ESA’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle flew a flawless reentry and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean...

An experimental vehicle to develop an autonomous European reentry capability for future reusable space transportation has completed its mission. ESA’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle flew a flawless reentry and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just west of the Galapagos islands.

The IXV spaceplane lifted off at 13:40 GMT (14:40 CET, 10:40 local time) on 11 February from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana atop a Vega rocket. It separated from Vega at an altitude of 340 km and continued up to 412 km. Reentering from this suborbital path, it recorded a vast amount of data from more than 300 advanced and conventional sensors.

As it descended, the five-metre-long, two-tonne craft manoeuvred to decelerate from hypersonic to supersonic speed. The entry speed of 7.5 km/s at an altitude of 120 km created the same conditions as those for a vehicle returning from low Earth orbit.

esa space
nasaspaceflight.com

NASA budget proposal to initiate Europa mission plan
This was the case when the Europa Clipper gained several mentions in SLS documentation, claiming the spacecraft could enjoy a speedy transit to Jupiter via the powerful rocket’s increased capability. The problem is the cost of the mission would be greatly increased by riding on the expensive SLS.
However, that did not deter several studies being conducted between the launch vehicle and spacecraft stewards, ranging from an exercise in planning between SLS and JPL, through to payload fairing designs.
Such evaluations are commonplace, with SLS teams working notional Design Reference Mission (DRM) parameters to find missions for the monster rocket in the 2020s.
However, it has been noted there is now “frequent communication” between the Europa office at JPL and the SLS Program Office, with an exchange of data, analysis results and engineering computer models between the two organizations.
nasa space europa
“Saturn’s moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the angle is right, reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors.Pictured here in false-color, the robotic Cassini spacecraftorbiting Saturn imaged the cloud-covered Titan last summer...
Saturn’s moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the angle is right, reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors.Pictured here in false-color, the robotic Cassini spacecraftorbiting Saturn imaged the cloud-covered Titan last summer in different bands of cloud-piercing infrared light. This specular reflection was so bright it saturated one of Cassini’s infrared cameras.
titan cassini space
online.liebertpub.com

Ancient Sedimentary Structures from Martian Microbes

In this paper, the similarities of the macroscopic morphologies, spatial associations, and temporal succession of sedimentary structures on Mars to MISS preserved on Earth has led to the following hypothesis: The sedimentary structures in the < 3.7 Ga Gillespie Lake Member on Mars are ancient MISS produced by interactions between microbial mats and their environment.

astrobiology mars space
arxiv.org

Close encounters of the stellar kind

Stars which pass close to the Sun can perturb the Oort cloud, injecting comets into the inner solar system where they may collide with the Earth. Using van Leeuwen’s re-reduction of the Hipparcos data complemented by the original Hipparcos and Tycho-2 catalogues, along with recent radial velocity surveys, I integrate the orbits of over 50 000 stars through the Galaxy to look for close encounters.

apocalypse astronomy space