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Icy Moonquakes: Surface Shaking Could Trigger Landslides

April 14, 2023
Many of the ice-encrusted moons orbiting the giant planets in the far reaches of our solar system are known to be geologically active. Jupiter and Saturn have such strong gravity that they stretch and pull the bodies orbiting them, causing moonquakes that can crack the moons’ crusts and surfaces. New research shows for the first time how these quakes may trigger landslides that lead to…
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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Completes 50th Flight

April 14, 2023
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its 50th flight on Mars. The first aircraft on another world reached the half-century mark on April 13, traveling over 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds. The helicopter also achieved a new altitude record of 59…
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NASA to Convene Mars Sample Return Review

April 14, 2023
NASA will convene a Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program independent review board, or IRB, to perform a review of current plans and goals for one of the most difficult missions humanity has ever undertaken: bringing samples from another planet to study on Earth. Later this year…
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Gets a Major Software Upgrade

April 14, 2023
Years in the making, a major software update that has been installed on NASA’s Curiosity rover will enable the Mars robot to drive faster and reduce wear and tear on its wheels. Those are just two of about 180 changes implemented during the update, which required the team to put Curiosity’s science and imaging operations on hold between April 3 and April 7. “The flight software is essential…
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NASA Receives Nine 2023 Webby Award Nominations

April 11, 2023
The last time NASA sent a spacecraft to the Moon that was built to carry people, the internet didn’t exist. Its predecessor was a small network that connected a handful of servers at universities and military bases. That was 1972, and the system had only just developed the…
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NASA Awards Innovative Concept Studies for Science, Exploration

April 6, 2023
Technology in development today could radically change the future of air and space exploration. Nearly silent electric aircraft could ferry people and packages around cities, a sprawling radio telescope array on the far side of the Moon could reveal new secrets about the…
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NASA Study Helps Explain Limit-Breaking Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources

April 6, 2023
Exotic cosmic objects known as ultra-luminous X-ray sources produce about 10 million times more energy than the Sun. They’re so radiant, in fact, that they appear to surpass a physical boundary called the Eddington limit, which puts a cap on how bright an object can be based on its mass. Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs, for short) regularly exceed this limit by 100 to 500 times, leaving…
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NASA’s Perseverance Collects First Mars Sample of New Science Campaign

April 1, 2023
NASA’s Perseverance rover cored and stored the first sample of the mission’s newest science campaign on Thursday, March 30. With each campaign, the team explores and studies a new area. On this one, the rover is exploring the top of Jezero Crater’s delta. Perseverance has collected a total of 19 samples and three witness tubes, and it recently deposited 10 tubes as a backup cache on the…
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