When you’re out Trick or Treating and scaring little kids to tears next weekend, a 1,300-foot asteroid will be zooming past Earth. And it’ll be relatively close, too. According to NASA scientists, it’ll hurtle past just 1.3 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon, which is only about 300,000 miles away. This is expected to be the closest encounter with such a large object for at least the next decade
The private company has proved its rocket technology is capable of taking off and landing on its own, but only in the most ideal of conditions. When you’re dealing with the lateral movement of a barge, plus wind speeds and other factors, the mission becomes much more difficult. According to Musk, the Falcon rocket landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over.
NASA’s older, wiser, more experienced Mars rover, Opportunity, is suffering from bouts of amnesia. According to NASA project manager, John Callas, the elderly spacecraft keeps resetting itself, which the Opportunity team believes is an age-related fault. Imagine a kind of Groundhog Day scenario where the craft continuously resets its flash memory after it powers down.
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NASA on Friday morning took one massive step toward its journey to Mars, successfully sending its Orion spacecraft farther into the cosmos than any manned ship before it. No humans were actually aboard today’s flight—it was all autonomous—but today’s test was designed to prove NASA’s technology can withstand the perils of space. I’m talking temperatures of more than 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 degrees Celsius), heavy radiation, and traveling at more than 20,000 mph (32,000 kph). All said, Orion orbited the Earth twice, flying 3,600 miles above Earth at its highest point.
NASA has plans to one day send humans to Mars, and it hopes to use the Orion capsule to get them there. On Thursday, the agency will take a huge step toward that goal by sending the spaceship on a 4.5-hour test flight around the globe, looking to test its parachutes, heat shield and other equipment integral to an eventual trip to Mars. No humans will be onboard this time, with engineers instead operating Orion from the ground.
Plenty of studies suggest your home broadband speeds are getting slower. And it could get worse, too, with big providers snuggling up into a Megazord of awfulness. But if you would just move to the moon, you’d be able to enjoy some pretty lavish speeds much better than what you and I get at home. Welcome to Space Age Wi-Fi.
NASA doesn’t just have plans to send more robots—and maybe humans—to Mars over the next decade. The agency also wants to bring some plant life to the Martian planet in the hopes of encouraging some good old terraforming. What’s bereft of life and red all over might one day be a lush paradise. One can only hope. Evidence certainly suggests it was much different millions of years ago compared to how it is now.
The photograph you see above is stumping NASA researchers. Just as the agency continues to pursue whether or not Mars once—or currently does—contain water, it looks as though there are deeper mysteries worth exploring. The picture was shared by NASA Mars Exploration Rover lead scientist, Steve Squyres, during an event celebrating the ten year anniversary of the agency’s twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, since landing on the red planet in 2004. The strange rock was described as about the size of a donut, and is stumping scientists as to where it came from. The photo on the left was taken from sol 3528, while the photo on the right, with the donut rock, shows up in sol 3540.
Despite sounding like the plot to a Michael Bay film, NASA really does want to lasso an asteroid and land astronauts on it. In preparation of such an event, the agency has already begun experimenting with a new version of its Advanced Crew Escape System (ACES) suit, ensuring it’ll be suitable enough for astronauts when they actually spacewalk on an asteroid. NASA’s iconic orange ACES suit is currently used by astronauts during launch and reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.