The discovery of amino acids, abundant ammonia, and the bases of DNA and RNA on asteroid Bennu suggest that materials essential to life might be widespread throughout the solar system.
spacecraft
Posted inNews
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Reopens as Fire Recovery Continues
Many JPL staff, including its director, are still displaced or without homes after devastating fires throughout the LA region.
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Latest Moon Mission Is Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue
Firefly Aerospace hopes to kick off 2025 by sticking a lunar landing. Science from the mission’s 10 NASA payloads could help guide future Moon missions.
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Seismometers Track Atmospheric Shock Waves from Incoming Space Debris
A Chinese spacecraft that burned up high over Los Angeles created a sonic trail detected by ground-based sensors.
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Straightening Out Uranus’s Magnetosphere
New analysis of Voyager 2 observations shows that the craft arrived amid gusty solar wind, muddying our ideas about the giant planet.
Posted inFeatures
El pasado, presente y futuro de traer muestras extraterrestres
La obtención de muestras de cuerpos distantes del sistema solar ha revolucionado nuestra comprensión del cosmos y del lugar que ocupamos en él.
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Clipper Sets Sail for an Ocean Millions of Miles Away
Europa Clipper will assess whether Jupiter’s moon has the right ingredients to host life, and could illuminate the mysteries of icy worlds throughout the solar system.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Fifteen Years Later, Scientists Locate a Lunar Impact Site
The impact crater from NASA’s LCROSS mission lies hidden in an eternally dark region of the Moon.
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A Binary Asteroid System Gets Its Geological Close-Up
Researchers are learning more about the geology and evolution of the binary asteroid system Didymos from high-resolution imagery collected by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission.