That is T-Minus, the place we depend down the most important developments in house, from new rocket launches to discoveries that advance our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Humanity is reaching new heights in house exploration. Be sure to’re a part of the journey by subscribing right here.
Juno snaps Jupiter’s “pizza moon”
Since 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has snapped 1000’s of beautiful photographs of Jupiter and a number of other of its moons, together with Io, probably the most volcanically lively physique in your complete photo voltaic system.
On December 30, Juno flew inside 930 miles of Io, which is the closest any spacecraft has come to the moon in additional than 20 years. Through the flyby, it recorded photographs of Io in seen and infrared mild which can be anticipated to assist NASA unravel the thriller of the risky moon.
“By combining knowledge from this flyby with our earlier observations, the Juno science group is learning how Io’s volcanoes range,” stated Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator. “We’re in search of how usually they erupt, how shiny and scorching they’re, how the form of the lava stream modifications, and the way Io’s exercise is linked to the stream of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”
SLIM prepares for historic touchdown
On December 25, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company introduced that its Sensible Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft had formally entered the moon’s orbit, some 4 months after launch. It’ll now circle the moon till making an attempt a touchdown on January 20.
If the mission succeeds, SLIM will make Japan simply the fifth nation — after the US, the USSR/Russia, China, and India — to land a spacecraft on the moon with out destroying it within the course of.
It might additionally make it simpler to discover components of the moon which can be at present thought-about too treacherous for a touchdown — whereas a typical lunar lander’s accuracy will be measured in miles, JAXA has geared up SLIM with tech it believes will allow the spacecraft to land inside 330 meters of its goal, incomes the mission its “moon sniper” nickname.
SpaceX launches mysterious spaceplane
In 2010, the US navy launched its X-37B spaceplane for the primary time, utilizing certainly one of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets to hold the car into orbit the place it remained for eight months earlier than flying all the way down to Earth and touchdown on an airplane runway at a navy base in California.
The uncrewed spaceplane has accomplished 5 extra missions since then, although what precisely it does on them is basically unknown — whereas we do understand it has carried experiments for NASA, the navy is mostly tight-lipped relating to the spaceplane’s actions in orbit.
On December 28, the spaceplane kicked off its seventh mission. Not like the earlier six missions, this time it was lifted into house by a extra highly effective SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, main some to invest that it may very well be heading to a higher-than-normal orbit — or perhaps even the moon.
We’d love to listen to from you! In case you have a remark about this text or if in case you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please electronic mail us at suggestions@freethink.com.
