The European Space Agency (ESA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday (Oct. 27) formalizing its collaboration on Gateway, a planned outpost in lunar orbit that NASA sees as key to its Artemis program of crewed moon exploration.
Under this new agreement, ESA will provide Gateway with a habitation module and a refueling module, both of which the European agency will operate once the hardware is up and running. ESA contributions will also include two additional service modules for NASA's Orion capsule, the spacecraft that will launch Artemis astronauts from Earth atop the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rockets.
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Super-Earth and sub-Neptune found orbiting a red dwarf star | Space | EarthSky
Astronomers using a telescope in Mexico have found two more exoplanets – a super-Earth and a sub-Neptune – orbiting a red dwarf star 120 light-years from Earth.
Size comparison of TOI-1266 b, TOI-1266 c, Earth, Venus and Mercury. Image via Institute of Astronomy, UNAM/ Juan Carlos Yustis/ Centauri Dreams .
The innermost of the two planets – TOI-1266 b – is just under 2 1/2 times Earth’s diameter and so is classified as a sub-Neptune (smaller than Neptune but much larger than Earth). The outer planet – TOI-1266 c – is just over 1 1/2 times Earth’s diameter, making it a super-Earth (smaller than Neptune but a bit larger than Earth).
As Of Right Now We Have A Mystery 'Mini-Moon' Orbiting Earth. Is It An Asteroid Or 'Space Junk?'
Ironically, it could turn out to be a spent rocket booster that was supposed to visit our one, true Moon back in 1966, but instead got lost in space and is now making an unexpected return visit to Earth.
Here's everything you need to know about 2020 SO, what's going to happen to it, and how scientists will endeavour to find out exactly what it really is.
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2020 SO is orbiting the Sun. In fact, its orbit of the Sun is on the exact same plane as Earth's. It orbits the Sun in 387 days. That's all very rare for an asteroid. So too is its velocity, which is reckoned to be a pedestrian 1,500 mph/2,414 kmh.
Earth Will Soon Have a Second Moon-Like Object Orbiting It | The Swaddle
Astronomers have discovered an object is on track to enter the Earth’s orbit in the next few weeks, becoming our newest mini-moon . But, they are beginning to suspect the object might not be an asteroid floating in space, but instead, manmade space junk from the 1960s.
Named 2020 SO , the new mini-moon is expected to start orbiting the Earth sometime in October or November of this year and pop out of orbit in May 2021. Reportedly, scientists had first spotted this object from a Hawaiian observatory in August, but as they continued studying it, they became more and more convinced that it may not be a new asteroid at all.
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Meet the Pi planet. It orbits its star every 3.14 days | Space | EarthSky
In a fun cosmic coincidence, researchers used old Kepler spacecraft data to discover an Earth-sized exoplanet with an orbital period of 3.14 days, a number that matches the mathematical constant pi.
Artist’s concept of K2-315b, which has on orbital period of 3.14 Earth-days, the same value as the mathematical constant pi . Image via NASA Ames/ JPL-Caltech/ T. Pyle/ Christine Daniloff/ MIT .
The pi planet was discussed in a new peer-reviewed paper published in The Astronomical Journal on September 21, 2020.
D-Orbit Satellite Carrier delivers Planet SuperDoves to desired orbits - SpaceNews
SAN FRANCISCO – D-Orbit of Italy demonstrated the first commercial last-mile delivery service when it finished a two-month campaign Oct. 28, dropping off 12 Planet SuperDove Earth-imaging satellites in orbit.
"Many people talk about this upcoming market of in-orbit transportation or last-mile delivery, filling the gap between the drop off condition provided by the launch vehicle and the target orbit relevant for the operational or business purposes of the end users," Renato Panesi, D-Orbit chief commercial officer, told SpaceNews . "We have been able to fill that gap. We are the first in the world to do that."
Studying craters on asteroid Bennu shows how long it has been orbiting near Earth
To learn more about the age of the asteroid and its time spent orbiting near the Earth, the researchers focused their efforts on craters in boulders on the surface of the asteroid. Prior research has suggested that Bennu was once part of a larger body and was knocked off by a collision with another object while orbiting in the circumstellar disc, an asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter.
After the collision, researchers believe Bennu slowly made its way out of the asteroid belt. During that time, it was struck by other objects, some of which hit boulders on its surface, resulting in large craters. After it made its way out of the asteroid belt, Bennu continued to be hit by other smaller objects, some of which also struck boulders on its surface, but the researchers with this new effort believe those newer strikes resulted in smaller impact craters.
New work reveals the likely original locations of Saturn and Jupiter - Tech Explorist
When the sun was young, it was surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and dust from which the planets were born. The orbits of early formed planets were believed to be initially close-packed and circular. Still, gravitational interactions between the more massive objects perturbed the arrangement and made the baby giant planets reshuffle rapidly, creating the configuration we see today.
Carnegie’s Matt Clement said, “There are thousands of planetary systems in our Milky Way galaxy alone. But it turns out that the arrangement of planets in our Solar System is highly unusual, so we use models to reverse engineer and replicate its formative processes. This is a bit like trying to figure out what happened in a car crash after the fact — how fast were the cars going, in what directions, and so on.”
Happening on Twitter
Europe will help build NASA's moon-orbiting Gateway space station https://t.co/QmBgAYhpFR https://t.co/DynDNsCINH SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Tue Oct 27 20:24:05 +0000 2020
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