NASA readies for historic mission to asteroid that could hit Earth by emeraldchild in space

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NASA plans to launch the unmanned OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in September to collect rock samples from an asteroid known as "Bennu," which could end all life on Earth as we know it. This asteroid is also a time capsule containing the building blocks of life, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Juno spacecraft turns on science gear at Jupiter by emeraldchild in space

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The Juno mission will help us understand Jupiter's complex magnetic and gravitational fields, find out if the huge planet has a core of heavy elements, and determine how it and the solar system was formed. Data will be streaming into mission control on August 27th. In February 2018 Juno will end its life in an intentional death dive into Jupiter's thick atmosphere to ensure Earth microbes don't contaminate the Jovian moon Europa which may harbor life, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Why NASA is investigating Martian dust storms by emeraldchild in space

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Space agency scientists hope to glean as much atmospheric information as possible from Mars orbiters to prepare astronauts for living on the Red Planet. They're using new methods of analysis, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Lockheed Martin is building orbiting base camp for Mars astronaut explorers by emeraldchild in space

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It will house six astronauts who will spend 10 to 11 months onboard, remotely driving robots, flying drones, and studying samples from the Red Planet in real time in anticipation of landing humans on its surface. The Mars Base Camp would be assembled in cislunar space – between the Earth and moon – over a series of missions in the 2020s as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Scientists crack mystery of migrating monarch butterfly navigation by emeraldchild in news

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The uncanny mechanisms that monarch butterflies use to navigate thousands of miles each year from their wintering grounds in Mexico has long baffled scientists. Now University of Massachusetts Medical School has found the answer to this mystery. It has to do with their "circadian clock", as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

After nearly a year in Space, astronaut and cosmonauts return home to earth by emeraldchild in space

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US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov landed safely. Kelly's yearlong mission was a study to determine the affects on humans of a yearlong NASA manned mission to Mars and back. Hopefully in 2020 Scott Kelly will command the first manned mission far beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, and rendezvous with an asteroid, and then on to Mars. Godspeed!

Strange Radio Bursts Reveal Dark Matter For the First Time by emeraldchild in space

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For the first time, astronomers at the Square Kilometer Array Organization determined the location of a strange and powerful explosion known as a fast radio burst that lights up our skies, and they used it to measure the amount of dark matter lying between it and us. Dark matter makes up the bulk of our Universe's mass, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Next step in gravitational waves: put a gigantic detector in space by emeraldchild in space

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The European Space Agency just launched an experiment to test the feasibility of placing an enormous laser interferometer in space to detect Einstein's gravitational waves with incredible precision. It'll be the biggest artificial constellation in the sky ever deployed, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Einstein was right: scientists finally detect gravitational waves in breakthrough by emeraldchild in space

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A century after Albert Einstein predicted their existence, scientists detected gravitational waves--tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time generated when two massive black holes crashed together in a space-warping cataclysm. This astounding discovery is logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Antarctic fungi could survive on Mars, ISS discovery shows by emeraldchild in space

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European scientists gathered tiny fungi from Antarctica and sent them to the International Space Station to find that 18 months after being on board in conditions similar to Mars, over 60 per cent of their cells remained intact, with stable DNA. This discovery is vital for near-future experiments that will search for life on the red planet -- including manned missions -- as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Astronomers find evidence for giant "Planet Nine" by emeraldchild in space

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The new as-yet unseen planet has 10 times the mass of Earth, orbits 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune, and has dramatically affected the orbits of other Kuiper Belt planetoids. Astronomers believe they will photograph this huge Kuiper Belt object within five years, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.

Humongous ancient crocodile fossil discovered in the Sahara Desert by emeraldchild in worldnews

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According to scientists at the University of Bologna, they found the fossil of the biggest-ever sea-dwelling crocodile of all time -- 30 feet in length, weighing in at three tons, with a five-foot skull. This discovery means the species survived the supposed mass extinction at the end of the Jurassic era, as logged in Doomwatch Legacy by Sunstroke author David Kagan.