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Canadian will join Moon mission for first time in 2023
Montreal (AFP) - A Canadian astronaut will take part in a lunar mission for the first time in 2023, as part of the NASA-led Artemis project, the minister for innovation, science and industry announced Wednesday. "I am proud to announce another first: Canada will join the US on the first crewed mission to the Moon since the Apollo mission," the minister, Navdeep Bains, told a press conference. "This will make Canada only the second country after the US to have an astronaut in deep space." The mission, Artemis II, will see a crewed test flight sent into orbit in 2023 but will not involve an actu...
AFP
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Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory 'not closing' after collapse
Washington (AFP) - Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory could still have a future after its vast telescope dramatically collapsed this week, US officials said Thursday. The structure was destroyed on Tuesday when its 900-ton receiver platform, which was suspended 450 feet (140 meters) in the air, fell loose and plunged onto the radio dish below. Ralph Gaume, director of the US National Science Foundation's division of astronomical sciences, said "the NSF is not closing the Arecibo Observatory." "The NSF is deeply saddened by the situation," he told reporters, adding that the agency "has a very we...
AFP
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NASA to launch delicate stowing of Osiris-Rex asteroid samples
Washington (AFP) - NASA's robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex is set to begin on Tuesday a delicate operation to store the precious particles it scooped up from the asteroid Bennu, but which were leaking into space when a flap got wedged open.The probe is on a mission to collect fragments that scientists hope will help unravel the origins of our solar system, but that hit a snag after it picked up too big of a sample.Fragments from the asteroid's surface are in a collector at the end of the probe's three-meter (10-foot) arm, slowly escaping into space because some rocks have prevented the compartmen...
AFP
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NASA probe Osiris-Rex 'boops' asteroid Bennu in historic mission
Washington (AFP) - After a four-year journey, NASA's robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex briefly touched down on asteroid Bennu's boulder-strewn surface on Tuesday to collect rock and dust samples in a precision operation 200 million miles (330 million kilometers) from Earth.The so-called "Touch-And-Go" or TAG maneuver was managed by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado, where at 6:12 pm (2212 GMT) an announcer said: "Touchdown declared. Sampling is in progress," and scientists erupted in celebration.The historic mission was 12 years in the making and rested on a critical 16 second period where...
AFP
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US Nobel winner's 25-year odyssey to black hole at center of galaxy
Washington (AFP) - For US astronomer Andrea Ghez, who won this year's Nobel Physics Prize, what makes black holes so fascinating is how tricky they are to conceptualize.If she's asked to explain them to an average person, her standard answer is: "A black hole is an object whose pull of gravity is so intense that nothing can escape it -- not even light."That doesn't always satisfy people's curiosity."Very few people understand what a black hole is -- but I think so many people are fascinated by them," the professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told AFP by phone after she was co-...
AFP
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Back to Venus: Upstart company wants to beat NASA in search for life
Washington (AFP) - Can a small American aerospace company get to Venus before NASA returns to our superheated planetary neighbor?That's what Peter Beck, the CEO of Rocket Lab, is hoping as he sets his sights on launching a low-cost probe in 2023.Over the past decade his company has become very good at putting satellites in to orbit -- and his dream of taking the next step, an interplanetary mission, has received a shot of adrenaline recently with the surprising discovery of a gas linked to living organisms in Venus's corrosive, sulfuric atmosphere."What we're looking for on Mars is signs of pr...
AFP
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US probe to touch down on asteroid Bennu on October 20
Washington (AFP) - After a four-year journey, NASA's robotic spacecraft OSIRIS-REx will descend to asteroid Bennu's boulder-strewn surface on October 20, touching down for a few seconds to collect rock and dust samples, the agency said Thursday.Scientists hope the mission will help deepen our understanding of how planets formed and life began and provide insight on asteroids that could impact Earth."Years of planning and hard work by this team are essentially coming down to putting the TAGSAM (Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) into contact with the surface for just five to 10 seconds,...
AFP