Latest news with #MarciaDunn
CTV News
4 days ago
- Science
- CTV News
Hubble Space Telescope takes best picture yet of the comet visiting from another solar system
This image provided by NASA/European Space Agency shows an image captured by Hubble of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. (NASA/European Space Agency via AP) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best picture yet of a high-speed comet visiting our solar system from another star. NASA and the European Space Agency released the latest photos Thursday. Discovered last month by a telescope in Chile, the comet known as 3I-Atlas is only the third known interstellar object to pass our way and poses no threat to Earth. Astronomers originally estimated the size of its icy core at several miles (tens of kilometres) across, but Hubble's observations have narrowed it down to no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres). It could even be as small as 1,000 feet (320 metres), according to scientists. The comet is hurtling our way at 130,000 mph (209,000 km/h), but will veer closer to Mars than Earth, keeping a safe distance from both. It was 277 million miles (446 million kilometres) away when photographed by Hubble a couple weeks ago. The orbiting telescope revealed a teardrop-shaped plume of dust around the nucleus as well as traces of a dusty tail. ___ Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Clouds force last-minute delay for astronaut launch to the International Space Station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Thick clouds prompted SpaceX to call off Thursday's planned launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA. The countdown was halted at the one-minute, 7-second mark. SpaceX's next launch attempt from Kennedy Space Center is Friday, although the weather forecast is less favorable. The U.S., Japanese and Russian crew will spend at least six months at the space station, replacing colleagues launched in March as the fill-ins for NASA's two stuck astronauts. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who's temporarily leading NASA, was at Kennedy Space Center for the launch attempt. The morning started out with ideal weather, but the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. By Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
CTV News
20-06-2025
- Science
- CTV News
NASA spacecraft around the moon photographs the crash site of a Japanese company's lunar lander
This image provided by NASA shows an annotation indicating the impact site for ispace's Resilience lunar lander, seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera on June 11, 2025. (NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University via AP) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft around the moon has photographed the crash site of a Japanese company's lunar lander. NASA released the pictures Friday, two weeks after ispace's lander slammed into the moon. The images show a dark smudge where the lander, named Resilience, and its mini rover crashed into Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a volcanic region in the moon's far north. A faint halo around the area was formed by the lunar dirt kicked up by the impact. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the scene last week. The crash was the second failure in two years for Tokyo-based ispace. Company officials plan to hold a news conference next week to explain what doomed the latest mission, launched from Cape Canaveral in January. Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA spacecraft around the moon photographs the crash site of a Japanese company's lunar lander
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft around the moon has photographed the crash site of a Japanese company's lunar lander. NASA released the pictures Friday, two weeks after ispace's lander slammed into the moon. The images show a dark smudge where the lander, named Resilience, and its mini rover crashed into Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a volcanic region in the moon's far north. A faint halo around the area was formed by the lunar dirt kicked up by the impact. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the scene last week. The crash was the second failure in two years for Tokyo-based ispace. Company officials plan to hold a news conference next week to explain what doomed the latest mission, launched from Cape Canaveral in January. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press
Japan Today
05-06-2025
- Science
- Japan Today
Private lunar lander from Japan falls silent while attempting moon touchdown
This image taken from video shows flight controllers at ispace Mission Control in Tokyo awaiting confirmation of their private lunar lander touching down on the moon on Friday. By Marcia Dunn A private lunar lander from Japan fell silent while descending to the moon with a mini rover on Friday and its fate was unknown. The Tokyo-based company ispace said its lander dropped out of lunar orbit as planned and everything seemed to be going well. But there was no immediate word on the outcome, following the hourlong descent. As the tension mounted, the company's livestream of the attempted landing came to an abrupt end. 'We haven't been able to confirm,' one of the commentators said in Japanese, but Mission Control 'will continuously attempt to communicate with the lander.' The encore came two years after the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience carried a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house for placement on the moon's dusty surface. Long the province of governments, the moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience was targeting the top of the moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Plans had called for the 2.3-meter Resilience to beam back pictures within hours and for the lander to lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface this weekend. Made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover — named Tenacious — sported a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for NASA. The rover, weighing just five kilograms, was going to stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than a couple centimeters per second. It was capable of venturing up to two-thirds of a one kilometer from the lander and should be operational throughout the two-week mission, the period of daylight. Besides science and tech experiments, there was an artistic touch. The rover held a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg, for placement on the lunar surface. Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, considered the latest moonshot 'merely a steppingstone,' with its next, much bigger lander launching by 2027 with NASA involvement, and even more to follow. Minutes before the attempted landing, Hakamada assured everyone that ispace had learned from its first failed mission. 'Engineers did everything they possibly could' to ensure success this time, he said. Chief financial officer Jumpei Nozaki promised to continue the lunar quest regardless of the outcome. Ispace, like other businesses, does not have 'infinite funds' and cannot afford repeated failures, Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's U.S. subsidiary, said at a conference last month. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it's less than the first one which exceeded $100 million. Two other U.S. companies are aiming for moon landings by year's end: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology. Astrobotic's first lunar lander missed the moon altogether in 2024 and came crashing back through Earth's atmosphere. For decades, governments competed to get to the moon. Only five countries have pulled off successful robotic lunar landings: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. Of those, only the U.S. has landed people on the moon: 12 NASA astronauts from 1969 through 1972. NASA expects to send four astronauts around the moon next year. That would be followed a year or more later by the first lunar landing by a crew in more than a half-century, with SpaceX's Starship providing the lift from lunar orbit all the way down to the surface. China also has moon landing plans for its own astronauts by 2030. © 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
