Volcano on Venus
March 21, 2023 3:14 PM Subscribe
A Martian glacier, rockets, asteroid samples, moons, and more rockets. From the fiery Sun to the search for alien civilizations, here's an update on humanity's exploration of space.
Sol
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of an immense solar flare followed by a solar tornado.
Mercury
The European Space Agency (ESA) Solar Orbiter spotted Mercury transiting the sun.
Venus
Researchers identified signs of active volcanism on the planet's surface.
From Earth’s surface to orbit
China orbited another Egyptian satellite. Beijing plans to launch nearly 14,000 satellites, according to some researchers. That nation is also working on an Antarctic satellite-monitoring base. South Korea ended its space partnership with Russia and started developing its own capacity. Kazakhstan seized some Roscosmos material from the Baikonur spaceport.
SpaceX launched 21 second-generation Starlink satellites into orbit (video), landed its 100th successful Falcon rocket, launched two separate missions on St. Patrick's Day, sent four astronauts to the ISS on its Dragon ship, and successfully dry-fired Starship 33's engines. The company is also considering launching Artemis in April. The FCC approved Amazon's plan to launch 3,236 communication satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). Rocket Lab successfully launched its second satellite. In contrast, Relativity Space scrubbed an attempted launch of its 3d-printed rocket and Virgin Galactic suspended operations.
In orbit
Shenzhou 15 taikonauts completed a spacewalk on and around the China National Space Administration (CNSA) Tiangong space station (天宫) (video). Chinese satellite Tongxin Jishu Shiyan Weixing-3 (TJS-3) has apparently been changing orbits to get close to other nation's satellites.
A Russian satellite, Kosmos 2499, mysteriously broke up in orbit this January, according to the United States Space Force. Launcher's space tug Orbiter SN1 stopped functioning after power and control losses.
Back down to Earth
A just-found asteroid smacked into Earth's atmosphere and burned up, mostly.
Earth's Moon
Japan's Hakuto-R (ハクト) spacecraft, which launched in December, successfully entered lunar orbit after setting a record for being the farthest from earth a commercial spacecraft has gone.
China displayed concept models for a human-capable, two stage lunar lander. NASA showed off new spacesuit designs for lunar missions. The British government funded Rolls-Royce to design a nuclear reactor to power a lunar base.
From the Earth’s L2 point
Neil DeGrasse-Tyson explains the cosmological impact of recent Webb Telescope discoveries.
Mars
The Curiosity rover found potential evidence of water on a site expected to be dry. Meanwhile, scientists scanning orbital data identified a relict glacier on the planet while others spotted circular dunes. Curiosity also photographed some fine crepuscular rays. Ingenuity completed its 47th flight.
China's Zhurong rover (祝融) seems to be immobilized, failing to move after a downtime.
To the asteroids
Scientists found "a rich complement of organic molecules" from the asteroid Ryugu, samples of which Japan's Hayabusa2 mission (previously) returned to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network imaged an asteroid as it hurtled around 1 million miles past the Earth. When the DART mission hit asteroid Dimorphos (previously), the impact spewed 1100 tons of rock into space, according to new research.
Jupiter
The Juno spacecraft zoomed close to the giant planet's moon Io.
Saturn
The Hubble telescope spotted new spokes in Saturn's rings.
In the Kuiper Belt
Astronomers found a ring around the dwarf planet Quaoar, which they didn't think should be there.
Beyond the Solar System
A research team published their use of AI to help track down alien civilizations' technosignatures.
Sol
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of an immense solar flare followed by a solar tornado.
Mercury
The European Space Agency (ESA) Solar Orbiter spotted Mercury transiting the sun.
Venus
Researchers identified signs of active volcanism on the planet's surface.
From Earth’s surface to orbit
China orbited another Egyptian satellite. Beijing plans to launch nearly 14,000 satellites, according to some researchers. That nation is also working on an Antarctic satellite-monitoring base. South Korea ended its space partnership with Russia and started developing its own capacity. Kazakhstan seized some Roscosmos material from the Baikonur spaceport.
SpaceX launched 21 second-generation Starlink satellites into orbit (video), landed its 100th successful Falcon rocket, launched two separate missions on St. Patrick's Day, sent four astronauts to the ISS on its Dragon ship, and successfully dry-fired Starship 33's engines. The company is also considering launching Artemis in April. The FCC approved Amazon's plan to launch 3,236 communication satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). Rocket Lab successfully launched its second satellite. In contrast, Relativity Space scrubbed an attempted launch of its 3d-printed rocket and Virgin Galactic suspended operations.
In orbit
Shenzhou 15 taikonauts completed a spacewalk on and around the China National Space Administration (CNSA) Tiangong space station (天宫) (video). Chinese satellite Tongxin Jishu Shiyan Weixing-3 (TJS-3) has apparently been changing orbits to get close to other nation's satellites.
A Russian satellite, Kosmos 2499, mysteriously broke up in orbit this January, according to the United States Space Force. Launcher's space tug Orbiter SN1 stopped functioning after power and control losses.
Back down to Earth
A just-found asteroid smacked into Earth's atmosphere and burned up, mostly.
Earth's Moon
Japan's Hakuto-R (ハクト) spacecraft, which launched in December, successfully entered lunar orbit after setting a record for being the farthest from earth a commercial spacecraft has gone.
China displayed concept models for a human-capable, two stage lunar lander. NASA showed off new spacesuit designs for lunar missions. The British government funded Rolls-Royce to design a nuclear reactor to power a lunar base.
From the Earth’s L2 point
Neil DeGrasse-Tyson explains the cosmological impact of recent Webb Telescope discoveries.
Mars
The Curiosity rover found potential evidence of water on a site expected to be dry. Meanwhile, scientists scanning orbital data identified a relict glacier on the planet while others spotted circular dunes. Curiosity also photographed some fine crepuscular rays. Ingenuity completed its 47th flight.
China's Zhurong rover (祝融) seems to be immobilized, failing to move after a downtime.
To the asteroids
Scientists found "a rich complement of organic molecules" from the asteroid Ryugu, samples of which Japan's Hayabusa2 mission (previously) returned to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network imaged an asteroid as it hurtled around 1 million miles past the Earth. When the DART mission hit asteroid Dimorphos (previously), the impact spewed 1100 tons of rock into space, according to new research.
Jupiter
The Juno spacecraft zoomed close to the giant planet's moon Io.
Saturn
The Hubble telescope spotted new spokes in Saturn's rings.
In the Kuiper Belt
Astronomers found a ring around the dwarf planet Quaoar, which they didn't think should be there.
Beyond the Solar System
A research team published their use of AI to help track down alien civilizations' technosignatures.
Just wait until the solar sharknado. Seriously, though, I'd never see most of this stuff if it wasn't for your posts, so, again, thanks for these, doctornemo.
posted by mollweide at 4:04 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 4:04 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'll add two interesting things spotted recently by amateurs:
Japanese astronomer catches meteorite smashing into the moon
New Discovery: the M31 [OIII] emission arc - a giant cloud of oxygen in the direction of Andromeda that nobody had ever spotted before. Video, research paper (which they published in collaboration with professional astronomers who confirmed their discovery)
posted by clawsoon at 4:25 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Japanese astronomer catches meteorite smashing into the moon
New Discovery: the M31 [OIII] emission arc - a giant cloud of oxygen in the direction of Andromeda that nobody had ever spotted before. Video, research paper (which they published in collaboration with professional astronomers who confirmed their discovery)
posted by clawsoon at 4:25 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
In The Kuiper Belt is going to be the name of the album by my 70s analog synth project Solar Tornado.
posted by hippybear at 4:25 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 4:25 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
I would listen to that, hippybear, I think many times
posted by BlunderingArtist at 4:36 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by BlunderingArtist at 4:36 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, Toto! It's a twister! It's a twister!
posted by kirkaracha at 4:40 PM on March 21, 2023
posted by kirkaracha at 4:40 PM on March 21, 2023
Am fascinated by the Chinese crewed lunar lander, the design is interesting. It looks like it the descent stage has to separate from the actual lander before the crewed lander, uh, lands. That's gonna be some tricky timing with the separation and then getting the descent stage away from the crewed lander.
So it's neat to see different ideas, but it does make this layperson wonder if the Chinese design is better or safer than the Apollo Lunar Lander. The latter used a descent stage to do the landing and the ascent stage rested on top of it, ie the two stayed together until the ascent portion took off. It'll be interesting to see if the final version of the Chinese lander matches this prototype.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:14 AM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
So it's neat to see different ideas, but it does make this layperson wonder if the Chinese design is better or safer than the Apollo Lunar Lander. The latter used a descent stage to do the landing and the ascent stage rested on top of it, ie the two stayed together until the ascent portion took off. It'll be interesting to see if the final version of the Chinese lander matches this prototype.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:14 AM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Venus: on the same day that the new vulcanism was announced, NASA announced that it's withdrawing most funding for the next Venus mapping mission ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by neuron at 12:02 PM on March 22, 2023
posted by neuron at 12:02 PM on March 22, 2023
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posted by hippybear at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]