Six people are about to find out what it would be like to live on Mars – without ever leaving the Earth.
Three men and three women will spend eight months
Tag: NASA
The Latest In Martian Fashion
NASA has unveiled the design of its Mars space suit.
The “Comet Of The Century” Set To Put On A Show
Comet ISON is about to put on a show.
Scientists around the world are watching as ISON streaks, ever-faster, towards the sun.
NASA has been studying ISON since December, when it was more than 800 million kilometres away.
Experts are calling Comet ISON as “the comet of the century.”
What is a comet? Here’s how astrophysicist Julie Abraham describes a comet: “It’s basically a big ball of dirty ice in orbit around the sun that gradually melts or burns up, spewing out debris and water in a plume blown out behind it.”
MAVEN Spacecraft Takes Off For Mars
This week, a “robotic explorer” left Earth on its way to Mars.
It should get there next September. Mars is more than 700 million kilometres away.
The explorer is going to Mars to try to solve some of the planet’s mysteries.
For instance, why is Mars now a cold, dry planet when it started out warm and wet?
The Associated Press reports that “the early Martian atmosphere was thick enough to hold water and possibly support microbial life.”
Scientists at NASA want to know what happened to change that.
U.S. Government Partially Shut Down
The U.S. government was partially shut down on Monday.
More than 800,000 government workers were forced to stop working.
They won’t get paid during the shutdown.
More than 400 public sites that are run by the federal government were closed.
They include national parks, monuments such as the Statue of Liberty in New York, historic sites, lakeshores and walking trails.
About 97 per cent of NASA employees will be sent home during the shutdown, according to The Washington Post newspaper.
Want To Be An Astronaut? A New Post Has Just Opened Up
Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield will soon be simply, “Mr. Hadfield.”
That’s because he has announced that he is resigning.
In this case, “resigning” means stopping his job as an astronaut.
Hadfield has been an astronaut for 35 years.
Recently, he gained wide popularity after sending photos and videos to Earth from the International Space Station.
Many people around the world enjoyed his tweets and Facebook posts from space.
New Space Mission Will Study Asteroid In 2018
A new joint project between the Canadian and U.S. space agencies will bring a piece of the universe to Earth.
The goal of the mission, known as OSIRIS-REx*, is to study an asteroid.
NASA, working with the Canadian Space Agency, will send a spacecraft to Asteroid 1999 RQ36. A robotic arm will grab pieces of the asteroid.
The spacecraft will be launched in Sept. 2016 and it will reach the asteroid in 2018.
The asteroid will be studied and mapped for about six months in space and then the sample will be brought to Earth in 2023.
Meteorite Lands In Russia
Hundreds of people can walk by your front door every day.
The only time you may notice someone, however, is when they knock. Last week, the universe knocked on Earth’s door.
Thousands of asteroids and meteoroids streak pass planet Earth every year. Some of them enter Earth’s atmosphere where most of them simply burn up—those are called meteors. Any that land on Earth are called meteorites.
When a meteorite landed in the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia last Friday, the world took notice. That’s because it was a particularly large meteorite; one chunk was about the size of a van.
No Signs Of Life On Mars… Yet
Scientists have not found any signs of life on Mars yet, but they say a robotic vehicle called “Curiosity” is helping them learn a lot about the planet’s history and climate.
Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012 after travelling through space for more than eight months.
It was sent to Mars by scientists from NASA in the United States.
Curiosity is a motorized vehicle called a “rover” which is controlled by scientists back on Earth.
It is about the size of a car and has six wheels that allow it to travel across the planet’s surface and climb over sand and rocks.
It also has a robotic arm, cameras, and instruments such as a scoop, drill and microscope that allow it to examine things it finds on the surface.
Then it transmits the information back to Earth.
The main purpose of Curiosity’s mission is to find out if anything could live on Mars, either now or in the past.
On Nov. 2, NASA scientists held a press conference to discuss what Curiosity had found in its first two months on Mars.
Extreme Skydiver Breaks World Records With Dive From Near-Space
Lots of people go skydiving. They jump out of an airplane, with a parachute, and sail down to Earth.
But on October 14, Felix Baumgartner took it to new heights.
Space.
Well, near-space, anyway.
Baumgartner rode in a helium balloon 39 kilometers above New Mexico.
And then he jumped out.
It sounds simple, but it was far from it.
