Space

A team led by of researchers at the University of Montreal has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are “water worlds,” where water makes up a large fraction of the entire planet. These worlds, located in a planetary system 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, are unlike any planets found in our solar system. The team, led by Caroline Piaulet of the Institute…

Set for a Thursday, Dec. 15 launch, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite promises to provide an extraordinary accounting of water over much of Earth’s surface. Its measurements of fresh water and the ocean will help researchers address some of the most pressing climate questions of our time and help communities prepare for a warming world. Making this possible is a scientific…

The SWOT satellite, or the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, is now encapsulated in its payload fairing in preparation for launch. Technicians at the SpaceX processing facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California completed the operation and will soon mate the fairing to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket. The fairing protects the satellite from aerodynamic pressure and heating during…

NASA’s Perseverance rover snagged two new samples from the Martian surface on Dec. 2 and 6. But unlike the 15 rock cores collected to date, these newest samples came from a pile of wind-blown sand and dust similar to but smaller than a dune. Now contained in special metal collection tubes, one of these two samples will be considered for deposit on the Martian surface sometime this month as part…