Latest news with #spaceexploration
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Europe wants to land a tiny spacecraft on the infamous asteroid Apophis in 2029
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Once feared as a threat to Earth, the asteroid Apophis is now considered to pose a rare exploration opportunity — if space agencies can act in time. The 1,100-foot-wide (340 meters) Apophis, also known as asteroid 99942, is set to make a very close, but safe, flyby of Earth on April 13, 2029. The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing its Ramses (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety) mission for a 2028 launch in order to accompany the rocky body during its close approach. Ramses aims to conduct a before-and-after-flyby analysis of the asteroid and features such as its surface characteristics, composition, orbit and more. Apophis' gravitational interaction with Earth is expected to trigger tidal forces in the asteroid, potentially altering its surface and interior. Understanding how Apophis is affected will bring valuable insights for international planetary defense efforts. And now, ESA plans to add a second cubesat to the mission, to attempt a landing on Apophis. It has selected the Spanish company Emxys to lead the development of what is a demanding task. "Landing on an asteroid is very challenging," Paolo Martino, Ramses project manager, said in an ESA statement. "The irregular shape and surface properties make it difficult to identify a stable landing site, while the very weak gravity makes it hard to stay on the surface without bouncing off and drifting away." The main Ramses spacecraft will be a modified version of ESA's Hera probe, which is on its way to the binary asteroid system Didymos to assess the effects of NASA's 2022 DART (Double Asteroid Redirect Test) impact. Ramses' status is not secure, however, despite apparent momentum behind the mission, as it requires ESA member states to officially commit to financially backing the mission at the agency's Ministerial Council meeting in November this year. Another agency looking at launching a dedicated mission to track and study Apophis is NASA. Scientists at the Apophis T-4 Years Workshop held in Tokyo in April urged NASA to repurpose the shelved Janus spacecraft to make a pre-Earth-encounter investigation of Apophis. The agency, however, currently lacks the budget to carry out such a mission, according to reports. A May 19 SpaceNews story reported that Nicky Fox, NASA associate administrator for science, said that the agency is looking into possibilities for using Janus for an Apophis mission, but stated that these depend on budgets for fiscal year 2026 and beyond. The context for this is not favorable, however. The Trump administration's 2026 budget request, issued earlier this month, calls for very deep cuts to the NASA budget, hitting science particularly hard. A study into collaborating with non-traditional partners for the mission, meanwhile, was found to be not viable, also due to funding issues, SpaceNews reported. Related stories: — Apophis: The infamous asteroid we thought might hit us — Collisions could increase chance of 'God of Destruction' asteroid Apophis hitting Earth — Shelved NASA spacecraft could spy on asteroid Apophis before 2029 Earth flyby NASA will have at least one spacecraft visiting Apophis, however. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which collected samples from the asteroid Bennu and delivered them to Earth, is on an extended mission — named OSIRIS-APEX — and will arrive at Apophis roughly one month after the asteroid's Earth flyby. Another visit will be made to Apophis due to a delay to the launch of a Japanese mission. DESTINY+ was scheduled to launch this year to study the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, the parent of the Geminid meteor shower. However, issues with the development of Japan's Epsilon S rocket have seen a change of plans, pushing back launch to 2028, but also affording the opportunity to make a flyby of Apophis on its way. Scientists are calling for thorough Aphophis investigations beyond a mere flyby. "We recognize that the entire world will be watching how we collectively respond to the knowledge opportunity for planetary defense presented by the safe but very close Earth passage by the asteroid Apophis in April 2029," an Apophis T-4 workshop summary communique stated. It backed OSIRIS-APEX, DESTINY+ and Ramses, calling these the highest-priority missions for Apophis, which should be "fully funded and supported to ensure successful achievement of their science objectives." "We find that international collaborations and coordination are imperative for achieving Apophis 2029 science," the communique read, adding that time is of the essence for moving forward and funding missions.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's 2026 budget would slash NASA funding by 24% and its workforce by nearly one third
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The White House wants to slash NASA's budget and workforce and cancel a number of high-profile missions next year, newly released documents reveal. On May 2, the Trump administration released its 2026 "skinny budget" request, a broad summary of its funding plans for the coming fiscal year. That document proposed cutting NASA funding by nearly 25%, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, with much of the reduction coming from the agency's science programs. On Friday afternoon (May 31), the White House published a more detailed version of the 2026 budget request, which shone more light on the administration's aims and the potential effects on NASA, its people and its mission portfolio. The proposed budget top line is the same in the newly released documents, which you can find here: NASA is allocated $18.8 billion in fiscal year 2026, which runs from Oct. 1, 2025 through Sept. 30, 2026. This would be the biggest single-year cut to NASA in history, and the 2026 funding would be the agency's lowest since 1961 when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society, a nonprofit exploration advocacy organization. NASA science funding would be cut by 47% next year, to $3.9 billion — the same number provided by the skinny budget. This would result in the cancellation of a number of high-profile missions and campaigns, according to the new documents. For example, Mars Sample Return — a project to haul home Red Planet material already collected by NASA's Perseverance rover — would get the axe. So would the New Horizons mission, which is exploring the outer solar system after acing its Pluto flyby in July 2015, and Juno, a probe that has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016. Two orbiters that have been studying Mars for years — Mars Odyssey and MAVEN — would be cancelled, as would NASA's cooperation on Rosalind Franklin, a life-hunting rover that the European Space Agency plans to launch toward the Red Planet in 2028. "In total, this budget aims to cancel 41 science projects — fully a third of NASA's science portfolio," The Planetary Society said in a statement about the newly released budget documents. "These are unique projects that would require billions of new spending to replace." The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's highly anticipated next-gen observatory, is not one of the casualties, as many had feared. But the budget request allocates just $156.6 million to Roman's development next year — less than half of what NASA had planned to spend. The budget request also slashes NASA's workforce from its current 17,391 to 11,853 — a reduction of about 32%. And it would eliminate the agency's Office of STEM Engagement, saying that NASA will inspire future generations sufficiently via its missions. "The radical and rapid gutting of NASA's resources will lead to reduced productivity, threaten institutional knowledge and create economic uncertainty in the American industrial base," The Planetary Society said. The organization is not a fan of the White House's plan, describing it as "an extinction-level event for the space agency's most productive, successful and broadly supported activity: science." Related stories: — Trump administration proposes slashing NASA budget by 24% — Experts alarmed as White House proposes 'largest single-year cut to NASA in American history' — Trump's 2026 budget plan would cancel NASA's Mars Sample Return mission. Experts say that's a 'major step back' The newly published documents also confirm other exploration plans laid out in the skinny budget — for example, the cancellation of the Gateway moon-orbiting space station and the phaseout of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule. These pieces of hardware have long been part of NASA's architecture for Artemis, its program of crewed moon exploration. The 2026 budget request eliminates SLS and Orion after they fly together on Artemis 3, a crewed landing mission targeted to launch in 2027. They would be replaced by private vehicles developed via the new "Commercial Moon to Mars (M2M) Infrastructure and Transportation Program," which gets $864 million in the 2026 budget proposal. It's unclear how much of this will actually come to pass, however; the budget request is just a proposal, which will not be enacted unless and until Congress approves it. The Planetary Society, for one, doesn't think this will happen; it describes the budget request "as dead on arrival in Congress."
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
James Webb telescope spots weird changes on Jupiter's icy moon Europa
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. You'd think that icy worlds are frozen in time and space because they're — well — icy. However, planetary scientists know that all worlds can and do change, no matter how long it takes. That's true for Europa, one of Jupiter's four largest moons. Recent observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) zero in on the Europan surface ices and show they're constantly changing. Dr. Ujjwal Raut of the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) reported on the changes reflected in the JWST studies. Not only does Europa's surface have amorphous ice, but there's evidence of crystalline ice scattered around there. That indicates the presence of an active water source, such as the subsurface ocean. It also points toward geologic processes that affect the surface. The changes seen at Europa are very short-term, perhaps two weeks in some places. "Our data showed strong indications that what we are seeing must be sourced from the interior, perhaps from a subsurface ocean nearly 20 miles (30 kilometers) beneath Europa's thick icy shell," said Raut. "This region of fractured surface materials could point to geologic processes pushing subsurface materials up from below. When we see evidence of CO2 at the surface, we think it must have come from an ocean below the surface. The evidence for a liquid ocean underneath Europa's icy shell is mounting, which makes this so exciting as we continue to learn more." As a Galilean moon, Europa orbits near the planet and within its strong magnetic field. Thus, the surface gets bombarded by radiation. It is tidally locked, meaning it shows the same face to Jupiter as it orbits. Europa has a rocky and metallic interior, covered by an ocean and topped by an icy shell that's fairly young in geological terms. It appears to be no more than 180 million years old. That tells us it has been resurfaced from within. JWST's spectral studies of the surface show that the ice crystallizes in different ways in various places. Generally, water ice freezes into hexagonal crystals. That's what we see on Earth when it snows or when rain freezes. However, Earth's surface is largely protected from outside influences such as radiation and the ice stays in crystalline form much longer. Related: 'Previously unimaginable': James Webb telescope breaks its own record again, discovering farthest known galaxy in the universe On Europa, charged particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field bombard the surface. That disrupts the crystalline structure of the ice, turning it into amorphous ice. If that's all that ever happened to Europa's surface, you'd expect to see amorphous ice everywhere. Instead, the JWST spectral studies showed evidence of crystalline ice. There are also other surface "units", such as ridges and cracks. Radiation doesn't explain them, but other processes can create them. Combined with the new data collected by JWST, Raut said they are seeing increasing evidence for a liquid ocean beneath the icy surface. Scientists thought that Europa's surface was covered by a very thin (perhaps half a meter thick) layer of amorphous ice protecting crystalline ice below. The new evidence of crystalline ice on the surface also shows up in other areas, especially an area known as the Tara Regio. According to co-author Richard Cartwright of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the surface may be different than expected in places. "We think that the surface is fairly porous and warm enough in some areas to allow the ice to recrystallize rapidly," said Cartwright. "Also, in this same region, generally referred to as a chaos region, we see a lot of other unusual things, including the best evidence for sodium chloride, like table salt, probably originating from its interior ocean. We also see some of the strongest evidence for CO2 and hydrogen peroxide on Europa. The chemistry in this location is really strange and exciting." Related: How many moons does Jupiter have? The CO2 found in this area includes the most common type of carbon, with an atomic mass of 12 and containing six protons and six neutrons, as well as the rarer, heavier isotope that has an atomic mass of 13 with six protons and seven neutrons. That raises questions about the origin of the CO2. "It is hard to explain, but every road leads back to an internal origin, which is in line with other hypotheses about the origin of 12CO2 detected in Tara Regio," Cartwright said. So, how is water forced to the surface? There are two main sources of heat at work: tidal heating and radioactive decay at the core. Both of these processes warm the subsurface ocean and force water to the surface. What causes the chaotic terrain seen at Europa in such places as Tara Regio? There are several possible ways. One way is through the formation of chaos regions — those places that appear to be cracked and jumbled. They could be the result of material forcing its way via diapirs (think of them as stovepipes from below that convey warmer water and slush up to the surface). Once that water gets to the surface, it freezes rapidly into the crystalline ice JWST detected. The water also brings up dissolved CO2 and other materials. RELATED STORIES —Jupiter's moon Europa lacks oxygen, making it less hospitable for sustaining life —Jupiter's 'tormented moon' Io just unleashed the most powerful volcanic event ever seen —If alien life exists on Europa, we may find it in hydrothermal vents Another method for water delivery to the surface is through plumes. These geysers shower the surface with ice grains. Other mechanisms that could be forming crystalline ice are migration from other parts of the surface and impact exposure. Impacts are well known to "garden out" fresh ice in a short period of time. Such a collision may well explain the ice seen at Tara. This resurfacing with crystalline ice is relatively short-lived. That's because the constant bombardment of charged particles works immediately to create amorphous ice. The authors of the paper (see below) state that the charged particle-driven process that changes the ice may work in as little as 15 days on Europa's leading hemisphere. In other places, that might work faster. So, given that Europa is constantly refreshing its surface and charged particles are rapidly breaking that ice down, Europa is a busy, constantly changing place. The upcoming Europa Clipper mission should be able to study these regions in more detail during its many close passes of this tiny moon. The original version of this article was published on Universe Today.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
China's latest spacecraft aims to bring 'groundbreaking' samples back from asteroid near Mars
China launched a spacecraft that promises to return samples from an asteroid near Mars and yield "groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos," the country's space agency said. The Tianwen-2 probe launched early on Thursday from southern China aboard the workhorse Long March 3-B rocket. The probe will collect samples from the asteroid 2016HO3 and explore the main-belt comet 311P, which lies even farther from Earth than Mars, according to the China National Space Administration. Related Stunning new images from James Webb Telescope help unlock mysteries of Jupiter's glowing auroras Shan Zhongde, head of the CNSA, was quoted as saying the Tianwen-2 mission represents a "significant step in China's new journey of interplanetary exploration" and over its decade-long mission will "yield groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos". Samples from 2016HO3 are due to be returned in about two years. The asteroids, chosen for their relatively stable orbits, hopefully will offer clues into the formation of Earth, such as the origins of water. China earlier returned rock samples from the moon's far side back to Earth in a historic mission and has welcomed international cooperation. However, any cooperation with the US hinges on removing an American law banning direct bilateral cooperation with NASA. Related Soviet-era spacecraft from aborted Venus mission set to plummet to Earth The near side of the Moon is seen from Earth, and the far side faces outer space. The far side is also known to have mountains and impact craters, and is much more difficult to reach. China also operates the three person-crewed Tiangong - or "Heavenly Palace" - space station, making the country a major player in a new era of space exploration and the use of permanent stations to conduct experiments in space, especially since the station was entirely Chinese-built after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over US national security concerns. China's space programme is controlled by the People's Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party. Related The Red Planet or bust: Can the US get humans to Mars in Donald Trump's second term? The country's space programme has grown rapidly in the more than 20 years since it first put a man in space, only the third country to do so under its own speed. The space agency has landed an unmanned explorer on Mars and a rover on the far side of the Moon. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030. A future Tianwen-4 Jupiter mission will explore Jupiter, although details haven't been released.
The Independent
a day ago
- Politics
- The Independent
China launches spacecraft to collect samples from asteroid near Mars
China has launched its Tianwen-2 mission, dispatching a spacecraft to gather samples from an asteroid near to Mars. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) anticipates that this mission will "yield groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos." Launched on Thursday from southern China via the Long March 3-B rocket, the Tianwen-2 probe is set to collect samples from the asteroid 2016HO3. Additionally, it will explore the main-belt comet 311P, situated beyond Mars. Shan Zhongde, the head of the CNSA, hailed the Tianwen-2 mission as a "significant step in China's new journey of interplanetary exploration." This ambitious decade-long mission is poised to offer valuable insights into the universe. The samples from asteroid 2016HO3 are expected to be returned in approximately two years. These asteroids, selected for their stable orbits, may offer clues about Earth's formation, including the origins of water. China earlier returned rock samples from the moon's far side back to Earth in a historic mission and has welcomed international cooperation. However, any cooperation with the U.S. hinges on removing an American law banning direct bilateral cooperation with NASA. The near side of the moon is seen from Earth and the far side faces outer space. The far side also is known to have mountains and impact craters and is much more difficult to reach. China also operates the three person-crewed Tiangong, or 'Heavenly Palace,' space station, making the country a major player in a new era of space exploration and the use of permanent stations to conduct experiments in space, especially since the station was entirely Chinese-built after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns. China's space program is controlled by the People's Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party. The country's space program has grown rapidly in the more than 20 years since it first put a man in space, only the third country to do so under its own speed. The space agency has landed an unmanned explorer on Mars and a rover on the far side of the moon. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030. A future Tianwen-4 Jupiter mission will explore Jupiter, although details haven't been released.
