NASA said on Friday it was weighing an option to buy two additional astronaut seats aboard a Russian rocket as a contingency plan against further delays in the launch systems being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Boeing Co.

A possible purchase "provides flexibility and back-up capability" as the companies build rocket-and-capsule launch systems to return astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) from US soil for the first time since NASA's Space Shuttle program went dark in 2011.

The US space agency has since had to rely on Russia's Roscosmos program to ferry astronauts to the orbital space station at a cost of roughly $80 million per seat, NASA has said.

After 2019 there are no seats available on the spacecraft for US crew, and a NASA advisory panel recommended on Friday that the US space program develop a contingency plan to guarantee access to the station in case technical problems delay Boeing and SpaceX any further.

A NASA spokesman on Friday characterized a solicitation request NASA filed on Wednesday as a contingency plan. NASA said it could buy a seat for one astronaut in the fall and another seat in the spring of 2020.

"The absence of US&nbsp;crew members at any point would diminish ISS operations to an inoperable state," NASA wrote in its solicitation on Wednesday.

NASA awarded $6.8 billion to SpaceX, founded by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, and aerospace giant Boeing to develop separate launch systems to fly astronauts to space, but both companies have faced technical challenges and delays.

NASA announced another slip last week, citing concerns for both contractors such as the need to complete hardware testing and other factors. The US space agency said SpaceX was now targeting March 2 instead of February 23 for its un-crewed Crew Dragon test flight, with its astronaut flight coming in July.

NASA said Boeing's un-crewed CST-100 Starliner would fly no sooner than April, with Boeing's crewed mission is currently slated for August.

"Typically, problems will be discovered during these test flights," NASA wrote.

NASA said on Friday it was weighing an option to buy two additional astronaut seats aboard a Russian rocket as a contingency plan against further delays in the launch systems being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Boeing Co.

NASA said on Friday it was weighing an option to buy two additional astronaut seats aboard a Russian rocket as a contingency plan against further delays in the launch systems being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Boeing Co. A possible purchase "provides flexibility and back-up capability" as the companies build rocket-and-capsule launch systems to return astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) from US soil for the first time since NASA's Space Shuttle program went dark in 2011. The US space agency has since had to rely on Russia's Roscosmos program to ferry astronauts to the orbital space station at a cost of roughly $80 million per seat, NASA has said. After 2019 there are no seats available on the spacecraft for US crew, and a NASA advisory panel recommended on Friday that the US space program develop a contingency plan to guarantee access to the station in case technical problems delay Boeing and SpaceX any further. A NASA spokesman on Friday characterized a solicitation request NASA filed on Wednesday as a contingency plan. NASA said it could buy a seat for one astronaut in the fall and another seat in the spring of 2020. "The absence of US crew members at any point would diminish ISS operations to an inoperable state," NASA wrote in its solicitation on Wednesday. NASA awarded $6.8 billion to SpaceX, founded by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, and aerospace giant Boeing to develop separate launch systems to fly astronauts to space, but both companies have faced technical challenges and delays. NASA announced another slip last week, citing concerns for both contractors such as the need to complete hardware testing and other factors. The US space agency said SpaceX was now targeting March 2 instead of February 23 for its un-crewed Crew Dragon test flight, with its astronaut flight coming in July. NASA said Boeing's un-crewed CST-100 Starliner would fly no sooner than April, with Boeing's crewed mission is currently slated for August. "Typically, problems will be discovered during these test flights," NASA wrote.

NASA mulls buying new rides to space from Russia amid programme delays

Opportunity, a remarkably durable <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-rover-data-shows-mars-had-the-ingredients-needed-for-life-143114">NASA rover designed to roll</a> along the surface of Mars for three months, has stopped communicating with Earth after 15 years of service, officials said on Wednesday, ending a mission that astounded the US&nbsp;space agency.

Engineers lost contact with the solar-powered vehicle on June 10 during a dust storm that encircled Mars. Since then, NASA officials made numerous attempts to reach the six-wheeled rover, which is about the size of a golf cart.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/martian-dust-storm-silences-nasas-rover-opportunity-144235">Opportunity's equipment may</a> have been compromised by the storm, which struck while the rover was at a site called Perseverance Valley and blotted out sunlight needed by the robot's solar panels, officials said.

The vehicle was built to drive six-tenths of a mile (1 km), but ended up covering 28 miles (45 km) and lasting longer on Mars than any other robot sent to the surface of the Red Planet.

On Tuesday, engineers sent a transmission in a last attempt to revive the rover, but heard nothing back, said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

"It is, therefore, that I am standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude that I declare the Opportunity mission as complete," Zurbuchen said during an online video presentation at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

As Opportunity explored craters on Mars, it gathered evidence to demonstrate the planet in the ancient past was wet and warm enough to possibly sustain life, NASA said. That included the discovery of white veins of the mineral gypsum, an indication of water moving through underground fractures.

Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004, a few weeks after its rover twin, Spirit.

Spirit ended its mission in 2010 after becoming stuck in soft soil.

The Opportunity mission cost more than $1 billion, with about 300 JPL staff members dedicated to the project soon after it landed, John Callas, project manager for Mars Exploration Rovers, said by phone.

The team had dwindled to 30 by the time Opportunity went silent, he said. Its members are going to other projects.

Another NASA rover called Curiosity, which arrived on Mars in 2012, continues its work on the Martian surface, collecting soil samples to analyse them for signs of organic compounds.

And NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars in November, with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.

InSight and the next Mars rover mission, scheduled for 2020, are both seen as precursors for eventual human exploration of Mars, an objective NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has said might be achieved as early as the mid-2030s. 
&nbsp;

Opportunity, a remarkably durable NASA rover designed to roll along the surface of Mars for three months, has stopped communicating with Earth after 15 years of service, officials said on Wednesday, ending a mission that astounded the US space agency.

Opportunity, a remarkably durable NASA rover designed to roll along the surface of Mars for three months, has stopped communicating with Earth after 15 years of service, officials said on Wednesday, ending a mission that astounded the US space agency. Engineers lost contact with the solar-powered vehicle on June 10 during a dust storm that encircled Mars. Since then, NASA officials made numerous attempts to reach the six-wheeled rover, which is about the size of a golf cart. Opportunity's equipment may have been compromised by the storm, which struck while the rover was at a site called Perseverance Valley and blotted out sunlight needed by the robot's solar panels, officials said. The vehicle was built to drive six-tenths of a mile (1 km), but ended up covering 28 miles (45 km) and lasting longer on Mars than any other robot sent to the surface of the Red Planet. On Tuesday, engineers sent a transmission in a last attempt to revive the rover, but heard nothing back, said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "It is, therefore, that I am standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude that I declare the Opportunity mission as complete," Zurbuchen said during an online video presentation at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. As Opportunity explored craters on Mars, it gathered evidence to demonstrate the planet in the ancient past was wet and warm enough to possibly sustain life, NASA said. That included the discovery of white veins of the mineral gypsum, an indication of water moving through underground fractures. Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004, a few weeks after its rover twin, Spirit. Spirit ended its mission in 2010 after becoming stuck in soft soil. The Opportunity mission cost more than $1 billion, with about 300 JPL staff members dedicated to the project soon after it landed, John Callas, project manager for Mars Exploration Rovers, said by phone. The team had dwindled to 30 by the time Opportunity went silent, he said. Its members are going to other projects. Another NASA rover called Curiosity, which arrived on Mars in 2012, continues its work on the Martian surface, collecting soil samples to analyse them for signs of organic compounds. And NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars in November, with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth. InSight and the next Mars rover mission, scheduled for 2020, are both seen as precursors for eventual human exploration of Mars, an objective NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has said might be achieved as early as the mid-2030s.

Watch: After 15 years service, NASA announces end of Opportunity's Mars mission

Mars Opportunity rover ends 15-year mission

NASA in a report has said that its high-resolution satellites have shown that the world "is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago" due to two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations - China and India- leading in "greening on land".

The <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/2018-was-fourth-warmest-year-since-1880-nasa-195681">space agency made the discovery</a> with the help of two powerful&nbsp;satellites known as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS which revealed an increase in "leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests."

"There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a&nbsp; 5 per cent increase," the report asserted.

<img alt="NASA image" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="52ce1efe-820e-4d9b-9108-07e73f6c9729" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/NAASA.jpg" />

The author of the study, Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, in Massachusetts, said: "China and India account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 per cent of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation – a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation."

The report pointed out that although the land area used to grow crops hadn't changed since 2000's in China and India which was "more than 770,000 square miles" but the regions had increased both its "annual total green leaf area" and food production.

The<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-space-probe-phones-home-in-landmark-mission-to-solar-systems-edge-187869"> international space agency</a> said the 'greening trend'&nbsp;India was caused due to several factors namely food production grew&nbsp;due to increased groundwater irrigation.

"If the groundwater is depleted, this trend may change," the report cautioned.

The space body said China’s "outsized contribution" to the global greening trend at 42 per cent comes in large part from programs to "conserve and expand forests".

"82 per cent of greening seen in India comes from intensive cultivation of food crops," the report claimed.

The report credited increased greening in India and China to "multiple cropping practices" when a field is "replanted" to produce harvest several times in a year.

"Production of grains, vegetables, fruits and more have increased by about 35-40 per cent since 2000 to feed their large populations," NASA noted.

NASA in a report has said that its high-resolution satellites have shown that the world "is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago" due to two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations - China and India- leading in "greening on land".

NASA in a report has said that its high-resolution satellites have shown that the world "is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago" due to two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations - China and India- leading in "greening on land". The space agency made the discovery with the help of two powerful satellites known as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS which revealed an increase in "leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests." "There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a 5 per cent increase," the report asserted. The author of the study, Chi Chen of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, in Massachusetts, said: "China and India account for one-third of the greening, but contain only 9 per cent of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation – a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from overexploitation." The report pointed out that although the land area used to grow crops hadn't changed since 2000's in China and India which was "more than 770,000 square miles" but the regions had increased both its "annual total green leaf area" and food production. The international space agency said the 'greening trend' India was caused due to several factors namely food production grew due to increased groundwater irrigation. "If the groundwater is depleted, this trend may change," the report cautioned. The space body said China’s "outsized contribution" to the global greening trend at 42 per cent comes in large part from programs to "conserve and expand forests". "82 per cent of greening seen in India comes from intensive cultivation of food crops," the report claimed. The report credited increased greening in India and China to "multiple cropping practices" when a field is "replanted" to produce harvest several times in a year. "Production of grains, vegetables, fruits and more have increased by about 35-40 per cent since 2000 to feed their large populations," NASA noted.

China, India have helped in greening of Earth: NASA report

The past five years were the <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/our-battle-cry-is-against-climate-change-seychelles-president-danny-faure-tells-wion-on-world-environment-day--142217">warmest ever on record</a>, a NASA official said on Wednesday in New York.

"It's been hot," said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). "The last five years have been the record warmest years that we've seen in a record that goes back to the 19th century and possibly even hundreds of years before that."

2018 marks the<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/japan-heatwave-as-heatwave-intensifies-65-people-dead-22600-admitted-to-hospital--154020"> fourth warmest year since 1880</a> and ranks behind 2016, 2017 and 2015, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Temperatures in both 2016 and 2015 were lifted by an El Niño, a natural event which can disrupt weather patterns worldwide every few years and releases heat from the tropical Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere.

"The key issues in reducing emissions are moving towards renewable fuels for electricity, moving away from internal combustion engines for transport, sequestering carbon more efficiently in agriculture, making better decisions about how we organise our world so that we don't need so much energy," Schmidt said.

"But most of all, reducing the amount of coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels, and deforestation," he added.

Weather extremes in 2018 included wildfires in California and Greece, drought in South Africa and floods in Kerala, India. Record levels of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, trap ever more heat.

The outlook is for more sizzling heat approaching levels that most governments view as dangerous for the Earth.

"What kind of planet is a planet that's four or five degrees warmer than it is now? Well, we haven't seen that on Earth since about 3 million years ago in the Pliocene. At that point, we had forests all the way up to the Arctic Circle, there wasn't any ice," Schmidt informed.

"There was no Greenland and sea level was about 25 meters higher. That was a very different planet, and that's kind of where we're headed unless we do something about emissions."

The past five years were the warmest ever on record, a NASA official said on Wednesday in New York. "It's been hot," said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

The past five years were the warmest ever on record, a NASA official said on Wednesday in New York. "It's been hot," said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). "The last five years have been the record warmest years that we've seen in a record that goes back to the 19th century and possibly even hundreds of years before that." 2018 marks the fourth warmest year since 1880 and ranks behind 2016, 2017 and 2015, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Temperatures in both 2016 and 2015 were lifted by an El Niño, a natural event which can disrupt weather patterns worldwide every few years and releases heat from the tropical Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. "The key issues in reducing emissions are moving towards renewable fuels for electricity, moving away from internal combustion engines for transport, sequestering carbon more efficiently in agriculture, making better decisions about how we organise our world so that we don't need so much energy," Schmidt said. "But most of all, reducing the amount of coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels, and deforestation," he added. Weather extremes in 2018 included wildfires in California and Greece, drought in South Africa and floods in Kerala, India. Record levels of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, trap ever more heat. The outlook is for more sizzling heat approaching levels that most governments view as dangerous for the Earth. "What kind of planet is a planet that's four or five degrees warmer than it is now? Well, we haven't seen that on Earth since about 3 million years ago in the Pliocene. At that point, we had forests all the way up to the Arctic Circle, there wasn't any ice," Schmidt informed. "There was no Greenland and sea level was about 25 meters higher. That was a very different planet, and that's kind of where we're headed unless we do something about emissions."

2018 was fourth warmest year since 1880: NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Monday released a video broadcasting the lit up area in Atlanta, Georgia for the final game of the <a href="http://www.wionews.com/sports/history-for-brady-as-new-england-patriots-beats-los-angeles-rams-to-win-super-bowl-194929">Super Bowl between New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams</a> on Sunday.

In the video, the satellite shows the popularity of the sport through the lights. In a small tour, the US space agency grabbed a clear view where the station orbits Earth to catch the stadium's lights in Atlanta.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, Tom Brady won the Super Bowl for a sixth time as Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in a defence-dominated finale.

Brady, 41, became the first player ever to win six Super Bowls, 17 years after leading the Patriots to his first title in 2002.&nbsp;Patriots' wide receiver Julian Edelman won the Super Bowl MVP trophy.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Just saw the <a href="https://twitter.com/Space_Station?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Space_Station</a> appear during the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SuperBowl?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SuperBowl</a>? It orbits Earth with a crew living and conducting science in microgravity. Learn more about the <a href="https://twitter.com/ISS_Research?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ISS_Research</a> &amp; more underway now: <a href="https://t.co/74cLLK9Mk0">https://t.co/74cLLK9Mk0</a> <a href="https://t.co/fYOr9YpDAP">pic.twitter.com/fYOr9YpDAP</a>
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In a game where both offences struggled to find the end zone, Edelman made the most of his opportunities, catching 10 of the 12 passes thrown his way for 141 yards while rushing once for eight yards.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Monday released a video broadcasting the lit up area in Atlanta, Georgia for the final game of the Super Bowl between New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Monday released a video broadcasting the lit up area in Atlanta, Georgia for the final game of the Super Bowl between New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. In the video, the satellite shows the popularity of the sport through the lights. In a small tour, the US space agency grabbed a clear view where the station orbits Earth to catch the stadium's lights in Atlanta. Meanwhile, Tom Brady won the Super Bowl for a sixth time as Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in a defence-dominated finale. Brady, 41, became the first player ever to win six Super Bowls, 17 years after leading the Patriots to his first title in 2002. Patriots' wide receiver Julian Edelman won the Super Bowl MVP trophy. Just saw the @Space_Station appear during the #SuperBowl? It orbits Earth with a crew living and conducting science in microgravity. Learn more about the @ISS_Research & more underway now: https://t.co/74cLLK9Mk0 pic.twitter.com/fYOr9YpDAP — NASA (@NASA) February 4, 2019 × In a game where both offences struggled to find the end zone, Edelman made the most of his opportunities, catching 10 of the 12 passes thrown his way for 141 yards while rushing once for eight yards.

View from the top: NASA releases 'shining' Super Bowl video from space

With an eye to launching the first tourists to space by year's end, Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, blasted off the 10th test flight of its New Shepard rocket on Wednesday.

The rocket, carrying no people on board but eight science experiments for NASA, soared skyward from a launchpad in west Texas at 1508 GMT against&nbsp;a clear blue sky.

A few minutes into the flight, the capsule separated as planned from the booster and reached its peak height of 66 miles (106 kilometres).

"That is exactly what we were targeting," said Ariane Cornell, an astronaut for Blue Origin and commentator on the company's live webcast of the launch.

The frontier of space is internationally agreed to be 62 miles (100 kilometres) above Earth, known as the Karman Line.

Eight minutes after blast-off, the rocket booster fired its engines and made a controlled, upright landing back on Earth, marking the fourth flight for this particular rocket, and the 10th flight test for New Shepard overall.

"That, everybody, is a reusable rocket," said Cornell.&nbsp;

Moments later, the capsule floated to Earth, aided by a trio of parachutes, and touched down in a cloud of dust.

The entire mission lasted 10 minutes, 15 seconds.

"Looks to have been a wholly successful flight today," wrote Blue Origin on Twitter.

More test flights lie ahead, but the first flights with passengers on board could start by late 2019.

"We are aiming for the end of this year," Cornell said.

"We are not in a rush. We want to take our time and do this right."

The passenger capsule is "roomy," Cornell said, with six seats and six "big gorgeous windows."

The price per ticket has not yet been announced.

The New Shepard rocket first reached space last year, achieving a height of 66 miles in April 2018.

Virgin Galactic, headed by British billionaire Richard Branson, is also working on a vessel of its own to carry tourists to space.

On December 13, 2018, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, flew higher than it ever had before, surpassing what the US Air Force considers the boundary of space (50 miles), and marking the first manned flight to space from US soil since 2011.

The spaceship made it to a peak height of 51.4 miles (82.7 kilometres).&nbsp;

The brief flight -- with two pilots on board -- was a key milestone for the Virgin Galactic, which is striving to send tourists to space at a cost of $250,000 per seat.

With an eye to launching the first tourists to space by year's end, Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, blasted off the 10th test flight of its New Shepard rocket on Wednesday.

With an eye to launching the first tourists to space by year's end, Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, blasted off the 10th test flight of its New Shepard rocket on Wednesday. The rocket, carrying no people on board but eight science experiments for NASA, soared skyward from a launchpad in west Texas at 1508 GMT against a clear blue sky. A few minutes into the flight, the capsule separated as planned from the booster and reached its peak height of 66 miles (106 kilometres). "That is exactly what we were targeting," said Ariane Cornell, an astronaut for Blue Origin and commentator on the company's live webcast of the launch. The frontier of space is internationally agreed to be 62 miles (100 kilometres) above Earth, known as the Karman Line. Eight minutes after blast-off, the rocket booster fired its engines and made a controlled, upright landing back on Earth, marking the fourth flight for this particular rocket, and the 10th flight test for New Shepard overall. "That, everybody, is a reusable rocket," said Cornell. Moments later, the capsule floated to Earth, aided by a trio of parachutes, and touched down in a cloud of dust. The entire mission lasted 10 minutes, 15 seconds. "Looks to have been a wholly successful flight today," wrote Blue Origin on Twitter. More test flights lie ahead, but the first flights with passengers on board could start by late 2019. "We are aiming for the end of this year," Cornell said. "We are not in a rush. We want to take our time and do this right." The passenger capsule is "roomy," Cornell said, with six seats and six "big gorgeous windows." The price per ticket has not yet been announced. The New Shepard rocket first reached space last year, achieving a height of 66 miles in April 2018. Virgin Galactic, headed by British billionaire Richard Branson, is also working on a vessel of its own to carry tourists to space. On December 13, 2018, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, flew higher than it ever had before, surpassing what the US Air Force considers the boundary of space (50 miles), and marking the first manned flight to space from US soil since 2011. The spaceship made it to a peak height of 51.4 miles (82.7 kilometres). The brief flight -- with two pilots on board -- was a key milestone for the Virgin Galactic, which is striving to send tourists to space at a cost of $250,000 per seat.

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket makes 10th flight test

NASA, China aim to set up human colony on moon

Lord of the rings: Saturn's halo may be relatively recent trait

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan has said when it comes to India versus China debate in the space sector, India is at par with China. His comments have come&nbsp;days after China's launch of Chang'e 4 lunar probe on the dark side of the moon and ahead of India's Chandrayaan-2 mission which will be launched later this year.&nbsp;

Speaking to our correspondent Siddhant Sibal, the chairman also spoke on Gaganyaan and ISRO's focus for 2019.

WION: What will be your focus this year?

K Sivan: This year we mainly want to make use of the children, students and we want them to be more and more aware of ISRO's programmes. We want to bring students for the&nbsp;young scientist programme. Student satellite Kalam SAT is being launched. Along with this outreach programme, we have incubation centres. These are for spreading the wings of ISRO. Along with this, we have priority for Gaganyaan. We have 32 missions to be completed this year.&nbsp;

WION: We are going to launch Chandrayaan-2 this year. Weeks ago <a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/chinese-landed-on-moons-far-side-we-will-aim-for-lunar-south-pole-isro-chief-191189">China landed Rover</a> on the dark side of the moon. What is the difference?

K Sivan: The Chinese have landed on the <a href="http://wionews.com/world/china-launches-rover-for-first-far-side-of-the-moon-landing-182334">dark side of the moon</a>. We are going to land on the light side of the moon. Only thing is where we are landing, nobody else has gone. Going closer to the South pole, which nobody has gone. We expect a lot of science available for that.

WION: Your reaction to China versus India space debate?

K Sivan: Regarding the tech part. We are at par with them.

WION: How are we helping the South Asian region?

K Sivan: South Asia, we have one South Asia satellite. We are giving one transponder free of cost to each country. Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives&nbsp;are making use of this. Happy to note they are using satellite for the benefit of their country

WION: On Gaganyaan, are we taking help of countries?&nbsp;

K Sivan: Gaganyaan, many countries are ready to help us. France and Russia are ready to help. We will make use of everybody's expertise to our benefit. NASA is also ready to help us. We want to make use of everyone's help for maximum benefit

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan has said when it comes to India versus China debate in the space sector, India is at par with China.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan has said when it comes to India versus China debate in the space sector, India is at par with China. His comments have come days after China's launch of Chang'e 4 lunar probe on the dark side of the moon and ahead of India's Chandrayaan-2 mission which will be launched later this year. Speaking to our correspondent Siddhant Sibal, the chairman also spoke on Gaganyaan and ISRO's focus for 2019. WION: What will be your focus this year? K Sivan: This year we mainly want to make use of the children, students and we want them to be more and more aware of ISRO's programmes. We want to bring students for the young scientist programme. Student satellite Kalam SAT is being launched. Along with this outreach programme, we have incubation centres. These are for spreading the wings of ISRO. Along with this, we have priority for Gaganyaan. We have 32 missions to be completed this year. WION: We are going to launch Chandrayaan-2 this year. Weeks ago China landed Rover on the dark side of the moon. What is the difference? K Sivan: The Chinese have landed on the dark side of the moon. We are going to land on the light side of the moon. Only thing is where we are landing, nobody else has gone. Going closer to the South pole, which nobody has gone. We expect a lot of science available for that. WION: Your reaction to China versus India space debate? K Sivan: Regarding the tech part. We are at par with them. WION: How are we helping the South Asian region? K Sivan: South Asia, we have one South Asia satellite. We are giving one transponder free of cost to each country. Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives are making use of this. Happy to note they are using satellite for the benefit of their country WION: On Gaganyaan, are we taking help of countries? K Sivan: Gaganyaan, many countries are ready to help us. France and Russia are ready to help. We will make use of everybody's expertise to our benefit. NASA is also ready to help us. We want to make use of everyone's help for maximum benefit

We are at par with China: ISRO chairman on space race

By David Rothery

In a spectacular few days for solar system exploration – during which NASA whizzed the New Horizons spacecraft past the Kuiper Belt object 2009 MU69 (somewhat controversially nicknamed “Ultima Thule”) and eased OSIRIS-REx into orbit about the asteroid Bennu – the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has set its Chang'e 4 lander and rover down on the far side of the moon.

Chang'e is the name of the Chinese moon goddess – and Chang'e 4 builds on the success of the Chang'e 3 lander, which touched down on the moon in December 2013.

This new landing is far from being a mundane event. Only the US and the Soviet Union have ever landed spacecraft on the moon before. Those were either steered by humans onboard or, if uncrewed, relied on luck for a safe landing. Chang’e 4 used a downward-looking camera and hazard avoidance software to steer itself to a flat and sufficiently boulder-free landing spot, as it slowed its descent using retrorockets – an impressive technological feat.

Crucially, any spacecraft on the lunar far side cannot “see” the Earth, and so it can neither send to nor receive a radio signal from its control centre on Earth. To circumvent this problem, CNSA placed a relay satellite in a cunning “halo orbit” around a point in space sufficiently far beyond the moon that it can always see both the lunar far side and the Earth above the lunar horizon. The relay satellite is called Queqiao, which means “Magpie Bridge”, recalling a bridge formed by birds across the Milky Way in Chinese mythology.

This is the first time ever that anyone has landed a probe on the far side of the moon. That side sees just as much sunlight as the Earth-facing side of the moon, so is not literally a “dark side”, as it is often casually called. However, it is metaphorically dark, in that the moon’s rotation acts to keep that side facing away from the Earth as it progresses around its orbit, and its nature was unknown before the space age.

The far side of the moon differs from the near side in having far less area covered by dark lava flows (the lunar maria or “seas”). There is also a 2,500 km wide depression known as the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin occupying much of the southern part of the far side. This is probably the scar of a very ancient impact – and because it is about 8 km deep it provides a window through the moon’s crust and into the mantle that underlies it. It is special in that it never became flooded by lava like the large impact basins on the near side.

The chosen landing site, Von Karman crater, is in the north of the SPA basin about halfway between the south pole and the equator, and punches a little deeper than the surrounding basin floor. This gives the rover the best possible chance of locating rocks that originated from deeper inside the moon than have been analysed before – offering a chance to learn more about how the satellite formed.

There is some lava on the floor of Von Karman (which is what makes it a smooth, and hence fairly safe, place to land), however, but the rover will probably not have to travel far to find some lumps of rock redistributed from the exposed floor of the SPA by later, smaller, impacts. A few candidates can be seen in the first image from the surface.

Scientific measurements

The solar-powered six-wheeled rover is only 140kg, and measures 1.5 metres in its longest dimension. Its nominal lifetime is three months, but with luck, it may keep going for more than a year. Its science instruments are a camera, a ground-penetrating radar (to measure the depth and physical state of the lunar regolith or “soil”), an imaging spectrometer that will give some information on the mineralogy of the rocks and regolith, and a Swedish instrument to look at how the solar wind interacts with the surface.

This science payload is relatively modest and doesn’t take the best advantage of being inside the SPA basin. But just landing on the far side is nevertheless a notable milestone. China’s next step will probably be Chang'e 5, a mission to bring samples back to Earth from a region of apparently young lavas on the near side.

Measuring their age by laboratory techniques on Earth will provide an important piece for the jigsaw of lunar chronology, which is missing because these have never been sampled. Bizarrely, this was originally scheduled to happen before Chang'e 4, but was delayed by problems with the heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket.

China’s further steps in lunar exploration will clearly include a crewed landing, probably within five to ten years. In partial preparation for this, the static part of the Chang'e 4 lander includes a 3kg sealed biosphere within which potato seeds and silkworm eggs will be encouraged to germinate and hatch. This could help unveil whether the carbon dioxide exhaled from the larvae can be balanced by the amount taken up by the seedlings during photosynthesis.

Ultimately, that’s one small step towards a sustainable closed ecosystem on the moon.

(David Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University)

(This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-lands-on-the-far-side-of-moon-here-is-the-science-behind-the-mission-108566">original article</a>)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

By David Rothery In a spectacular few days for solar system exploration – during which NASA whizzed the New Horizons spacecraft past the Kuiper Belt object 2009 MU69 (somewhat controversially nicknamed “Ultima Thule”) and eased OSIRIS-REx into orbit about the asteroid Bennu – the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has set its Chang'e 4 lander and rover down on the far side of the moon.

By David Rothery In a spectacular few days for solar system exploration – during which NASA whizzed the New Horizons spacecraft past the Kuiper Belt object 2009 MU69 (somewhat controversially nicknamed “Ultima Thule”) and eased OSIRIS-REx into orbit about the asteroid Bennu – the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has set its Chang'e 4 lander and rover down on the far side of the moon. Chang'e is the name of the Chinese moon goddess – and Chang'e 4 builds on the success of the Chang'e 3 lander, which touched down on the moon in December 2013. This new landing is far from being a mundane event. Only the US and the Soviet Union have ever landed spacecraft on the moon before. Those were either steered by humans onboard or, if uncrewed, relied on luck for a safe landing. Chang’e 4 used a downward-looking camera and hazard avoidance software to steer itself to a flat and sufficiently boulder-free landing spot, as it slowed its descent using retrorockets – an impressive technological feat. Crucially, any spacecraft on the lunar far side cannot “see” the Earth, and so it can neither send to nor receive a radio signal from its control centre on Earth. To circumvent this problem, CNSA placed a relay satellite in a cunning “halo orbit” around a point in space sufficiently far beyond the moon that it can always see both the lunar far side and the Earth above the lunar horizon. The relay satellite is called Queqiao, which means “Magpie Bridge”, recalling a bridge formed by birds across the Milky Way in Chinese mythology. This is the first time ever that anyone has landed a probe on the far side of the moon. That side sees just as much sunlight as the Earth-facing side of the moon, so is not literally a “dark side”, as it is often casually called. However, it is metaphorically dark, in that the moon’s rotation acts to keep that side facing away from the Earth as it progresses around its orbit, and its nature was unknown before the space age. The far side of the moon differs from the near side in having far less area covered by dark lava flows (the lunar maria or “seas”). There is also a 2,500 km wide depression known as the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin occupying much of the southern part of the far side. This is probably the scar of a very ancient impact – and because it is about 8 km deep it provides a window through the moon’s crust and into the mantle that underlies it. It is special in that it never became flooded by lava like the large impact basins on the near side. The chosen landing site, Von Karman crater, is in the north of the SPA basin about halfway between the south pole and the equator, and punches a little deeper than the surrounding basin floor. This gives the rover the best possible chance of locating rocks that originated from deeper inside the moon than have been analysed before – offering a chance to learn more about how the satellite formed. There is some lava on the floor of Von Karman (which is what makes it a smooth, and hence fairly safe, place to land), however, but the rover will probably not have to travel far to find some lumps of rock redistributed from the exposed floor of the SPA by later, smaller, impacts. A few candidates can be seen in the first image from the surface. Scientific measurements The solar-powered six-wheeled rover is only 140kg, and measures 1.5 metres in its longest dimension. Its nominal lifetime is three months, but with luck, it may keep going for more than a year. Its science instruments are a camera, a ground-penetrating radar (to measure the depth and physical state of the lunar regolith or “soil”), an imaging spectrometer that will give some information on the mineralogy of the rocks and regolith, and a Swedish instrument to look at how the solar wind interacts with the surface. This science payload is relatively modest and doesn’t take the best advantage of being inside the SPA basin. But just landing on the far side is nevertheless a notable milestone. China’s next step will probably be Chang'e 5, a mission to bring samples back to Earth from a region of apparently young lavas on the near side. Measuring their age by laboratory techniques on Earth will provide an important piece for the jigsaw of lunar chronology, which is missing because these have never been sampled. Bizarrely, this was originally scheduled to happen before Chang'e 4, but was delayed by problems with the heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket. China’s further steps in lunar exploration will clearly include a crewed landing, probably within five to ten years. In partial preparation for this, the static part of the Chang'e 4 lander includes a 3kg sealed biosphere within which potato seeds and silkworm eggs will be encouraged to germinate and hatch. This could help unveil whether the carbon dioxide exhaled from the larvae can be balanced by the amount taken up by the seedlings during photosynthesis. Ultimately, that’s one small step towards a sustainable closed ecosystem on the moon. (David Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University) (This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

China lands on the far side of moon – here is the science behind the mission

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-says-received-great-letter-from-n-koreas-kim-187951">Trump received 'great' letter from North Korea's Kim, says still expects to hold </a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-says-received-great-letter-from-n-koreas-kim-187951">second</a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-says-received-great-letter-from-n-koreas-kim-187951"> summit</a>

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had received a "great letter" from Kim Jong Un, after the North Korean leader warned Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-mocks-indian-pm-for-library-in-afghanistan-187955">I don't know who's using it: Trump mocks PM Modi for </a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-mocks-indian-pm-for-library-in-afghanistan-187955">library</a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-mocks-indian-pm-for-library-in-afghanistan-187955"> in Afghanistan</a>

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-says-faraway-world-ultima-thule-shaped-like-snowman-187963">NASA says faraway world Ultima Thule shaped like 'snowman'</a>

Four billion miles from the sun floats Ultima Thule, an icy celestial body that NASA scientists announced Wednesday is aptly shaped like a giant snowman.&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/kerala-observes-hartal-over-entry-of-2-women-to-sabarimala-temple-187962">Kerala observes hartal over </a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/kerala-observes-hartal-over-entry-of-2-women-to-sabarimala-temple-187962">entry</a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/kerala-observes-hartal-over-entry-of-2-women-to-sabarimala-temple-187962"> of 2 women to Sabarimala temple</a>

A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/sports/ind-vs-aus-4th-test-mayank-hits-2nd-international-fifty-to-lift-india-on-day-1-187960">IND vs AUS, 4th Test: Mayank departs after brilliant 77, India 126/2 after 34 overs</a>

Mayank Agarwal rose to the occasion and hit another half-century to give India a decent start on day 1 of the fourth and final test against Australia, before losing his wicket to Nathan Lyon while trying to hit a big shot. &nbsp;

&nbsp;

Trump received 'great' letter from North Korea's Kim, says still expects to hold second summit US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had received a "great letter" from Kim Jong Un, after the North Korean leader warned Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. I don't know who's using it: Trump mocks PM Modi for library in Afghanistan US President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use. NASA says faraway world Ultima Thule shaped like 'snowman' Four billion miles from the sun floats Ultima Thule, an icy celestial body that NASA scientists announced Wednesday is aptly shaped like a giant snowman. Kerala observes hartal over entry of 2 women to Sabarimala temple A dawn-to-dusk 12-hour hartal called by Hindu outfits began Thursday morning in protest against the entry of two women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa. IND vs AUS, 4th Test: Mayank departs after brilliant 77, India 126/2 after 34 overs Mayank Agarwal rose to the occasion and hit another half-century to give India a decent start on day 1 of the fourth and final test against Australia, before losing his wicket to Nathan Lyon while trying to hit a big shot.

News brief: Big stories of the day

Four billion miles from the sun floats Ultima Thule, an icy celestial body that NASA scientists announced Wednesday is aptly shaped like a giant snowman.&nbsp;

The first detailed images beamed back from the US agency's New Horizons mission allowed scientists to confidently determine the body was formed when two spheres, or "lobes," slowly gravitated towards each other until they stuck together -- a major scientific discovery.

The New Horizons spacecraft on Tuesday flew past Ultima Thule, which was discovered via telescope in 2014 and is the farthest and potentially oldest cosmic body ever observed by a spacecraft.

Before that flyby, the only image scientists had was a blurry one showing Ultima Thule's oblong shape, resembling something like a bowling pin or a peanut.

"That image is so 2018... Meet Ultima Thule!" said lead investigator Alan Stern, doing little to hide his joy as he revealed a new sharper image of the cosmic body, taken at a distance as close as 17,000 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) with a resolution of 140 meters per pixel.

"That bowling pin is gone -- it's a snowman if anything at all," Stern said during a NASA briefing.

"What this spacecraft and this team accomplished is unprecedented."

Ultima Thule's surface reflects light about as much as "garden variety dirt," he said, as the sun's rays are 1,600 times fainter there than on Earth.

The body is roughly 19 miles long and completes its own rotation in about 15 hours. NASA dubbed the larger lobe Ultima, and the other, which is about three times smaller, Thule.

"This is the first object that we can clearly tell was born this way" Stern said, instead of evolving as a sort of "bi-lobe."

"This really puts the nail on the coffin now. We know that this is how these kinds of objects in many cases form."

'A time machine'

Some 4.5 billion years ago a cloud of frozen pebbles began to join forces, gradually forming two bodies -- Ultima and Thule.

Slowing turning, they eventually touched at each other at what mission geology manager Jeff Moore called an "extremely slow speed" -- maybe just one to a few miles per hour.

If such a meeting occurred between two cars in a parking lot, he said, no driver would bother writing it up. The lobes, according to Moore, are really just "resting on each other."

"New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system," Moore said. "We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time."

Carly Howett, another researcher of the mission, noted that "we can definitely say that Ultima Thule is red," perhaps due to irradiation of ice.

NASA researchers promised fresh announcements would drop Thursday, including on the composition and atmosphere of Ultima Thule, as new images with even more precise resolution have come through.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Four billion miles from the sun floats Ultima Thule, an icy celestial body that NASA scientists announced Wednesday is aptly shaped like a giant snowman. The first detailed images beamed back from the US agency's New Horizons mission allowed scientists to confidently determine the body was formed when two spheres, or "lobes," slowly gravitated towards each other until they stuck together -- a major scientific discovery.

Four billion miles from the sun floats Ultima Thule, an icy celestial body that NASA scientists announced Wednesday is aptly shaped like a giant snowman. The first detailed images beamed back from the US agency's New Horizons mission allowed scientists to confidently determine the body was formed when two spheres, or "lobes," slowly gravitated towards each other until they stuck together -- a major scientific discovery. The New Horizons spacecraft on Tuesday flew past Ultima Thule, which was discovered via telescope in 2014 and is the farthest and potentially oldest cosmic body ever observed by a spacecraft. Before that flyby, the only image scientists had was a blurry one showing Ultima Thule's oblong shape, resembling something like a bowling pin or a peanut. "That image is so 2018... Meet Ultima Thule!" said lead investigator Alan Stern, doing little to hide his joy as he revealed a new sharper image of the cosmic body, taken at a distance as close as 17,000 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) with a resolution of 140 meters per pixel. "That bowling pin is gone -- it's a snowman if anything at all," Stern said during a NASA briefing. "What this spacecraft and this team accomplished is unprecedented." Ultima Thule's surface reflects light about as much as "garden variety dirt," he said, as the sun's rays are 1,600 times fainter there than on Earth. The body is roughly 19 miles long and completes its own rotation in about 15 hours. NASA dubbed the larger lobe Ultima, and the other, which is about three times smaller, Thule. "This is the first object that we can clearly tell was born this way" Stern said, instead of evolving as a sort of "bi-lobe." "This really puts the nail on the coffin now. We know that this is how these kinds of objects in many cases form." 'A time machine' Some 4.5 billion years ago a cloud of frozen pebbles began to join forces, gradually forming two bodies -- Ultima and Thule. Slowing turning, they eventually touched at each other at what mission geology manager Jeff Moore called an "extremely slow speed" -- maybe just one to a few miles per hour. If such a meeting occurred between two cars in a parking lot, he said, no driver would bother writing it up. The lobes, according to Moore, are really just "resting on each other." "New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the solar system," Moore said. "We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time." Carly Howett, another researcher of the mission, noted that "we can definitely say that Ultima Thule is red," perhaps due to irradiation of ice. NASA researchers promised fresh announcements would drop Thursday, including on the composition and atmosphere of Ultima Thule, as new images with even more precise resolution have come through.

NASA says faraway world Ultima Thule shaped like 'snowman'

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-spacecraft-makes-historic-flyby-of-ultima-thule-distant-world-ever-studied-187648">NASA's New Horizons explorer</a> successfully "phoned home" on Tuesday after a journey to the most distant world ever explored by humankind, a frozen rock at the edge of the solar system that scientists hope will uncover secrets to its creation.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-spacecraft-breaks-record-for-smallest-space-object-ever-orbited-187693">The nuclear-powered space probe</a> has travelled 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) to come within 2,200 miles (3,540 km) of Ultima Thule, an apparently peanut-shaped, 20-mile-long (32-km-long) space rock in the uncharted heart of the Kuiper Belt. The belt is a ring of icy celestial bodies just outside Neptune's orbit.

Engineers at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland cheered when the spacecraft's first signals came through the National Aeronautic and Space Agency's Deep Space Network at 10:28 am EST (1528 GMT).

"We have a healthy spacecraft," Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman declared.

The spacecraft will ping back more detailed images and data from Thule in the coming days, NASA said. &nbsp;

Launched in January 2006, New Horizons embarked on its 4 billion-mile journey toward the solar system’s edge to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons.

"Last night, overnight, the United States spacecraft New Horizons conducted the farthest exploration in the history of humankind, and did so spectacularly," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern told a news conference at the Johns Hopkins facility in Laurel, Maryland.

An image of Thule, sent overnight and barely more detailed than previous images, deepens the mystery of whether Thule is a single rock shaped like an asymmetrical peanut or actually two rocks orbiting each other, "blurred together because of their proximity," Stern said.

During a 2015 fly-by, the probe found Pluto to be slightly larger than previously thought. In March, it revealed methane-rich dunes on the icy dwarf planet’s surface.

Now 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto for its second mission into the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons will study the makeup of Ultima Thule's atmosphere and terrain in a months-long study to seek clues about the formation of the solar system and its planets.

Scientists had not discovered Ultima Thule when the probe was launched, according to NASA, making the mission unique in that respect. In 2014, astronomers found Thule using the Hubble Space Telescope and the following year selected it for New Horizon's extended mission.&nbsp;

As the probe flies 2,200 miles (3,540 km) above Thule's surface, scientists hope it will detect the chemical composition of its atmosphere and terrain in what NASA says will be the closest observation of a body so remote.&nbsp;

"We are straining the capabilities of this spacecraft, and by tomorrow we'll know how we did," Stern told reporters on Monday. "There are no second chances for New Horizons."

While the mission marks the farthest close encounter of an object within our solar system, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2, a pair of deep-space probes launched in 1977, have reached greater distances on a mission to survey extrasolar bodies. Both probes are still operational.

Launched in January 2006, New Horizons embarked on its 4 billion-mile journey toward the solar system’s edge to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons.

NASA's New Horizons explorer successfully "phoned home" on Tuesday after a journey to the most distant world ever explored by humankind, a frozen rock at the edge of the solar system that scientists hope will uncover secrets to its creation. The nuclear-powered space probe has travelled 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) to come within 2,200 miles (3,540 km) of Ultima Thule, an apparently peanut-shaped, 20-mile-long (32-km-long) space rock in the uncharted heart of the Kuiper Belt. The belt is a ring of icy celestial bodies just outside Neptune's orbit. Engineers at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland cheered when the spacecraft's first signals came through the National Aeronautic and Space Agency's Deep Space Network at 10:28 am EST (1528 GMT). "We have a healthy spacecraft," Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman declared. The spacecraft will ping back more detailed images and data from Thule in the coming days, NASA said. Launched in January 2006, New Horizons embarked on its 4 billion-mile journey toward the solar system’s edge to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons. "Last night, overnight, the United States spacecraft New Horizons conducted the farthest exploration in the history of humankind, and did so spectacularly," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern told a news conference at the Johns Hopkins facility in Laurel, Maryland. An image of Thule, sent overnight and barely more detailed than previous images, deepens the mystery of whether Thule is a single rock shaped like an asymmetrical peanut or actually two rocks orbiting each other, "blurred together because of their proximity," Stern said. During a 2015 fly-by, the probe found Pluto to be slightly larger than previously thought. In March, it revealed methane-rich dunes on the icy dwarf planet’s surface. Now 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto for its second mission into the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons will study the makeup of Ultima Thule's atmosphere and terrain in a months-long study to seek clues about the formation of the solar system and its planets. Scientists had not discovered Ultima Thule when the probe was launched, according to NASA, making the mission unique in that respect. In 2014, astronomers found Thule using the Hubble Space Telescope and the following year selected it for New Horizon's extended mission. As the probe flies 2,200 miles (3,540 km) above Thule's surface, scientists hope it will detect the chemical composition of its atmosphere and terrain in what NASA says will be the closest observation of a body so remote. "We are straining the capabilities of this spacecraft, and by tomorrow we'll know how we did," Stern told reporters on Monday. "There are no second chances for New Horizons." While the mission marks the farthest close encounter of an object within our solar system, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2, a pair of deep-space probes launched in 1977, have reached greater distances on a mission to survey extrasolar bodies. Both probes are still operational.

NASA space probe 'phones home' in landmark mission to solar system's edge

A NASA spacecraft on Tuesday flew past the most distant world ever studied by humankind, <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-spaceship-zooms-toward-farthest-world-ever-photographed-187515">Ultima Thule</a>, a frozen relic of the early solar system that could reveal how planets formed.

"Go New Horizons!" said lead scientist Alan Stern as a crowd cheered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to mark the moment at 12:33 am (0533 GMT) when the New Horizons spacecraft aimed its cameras at the space rock four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away.

"Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away."

The spaceship was to collect 900 images over the course of a few seconds as it shaved by at a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,500 kilometers).

"Now it is just a matter of time to see the data coming down," said deputy project scientist John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute.

Scientists expect to learn whether the pass was successful around 10 am (1500 GMT).

A NASA spacecraft on Tuesday flew past the most distant world ever studied by humankind, Ultima Thule, a frozen relic of the early solar system that could reveal how planets formed.

A NASA spacecraft on Tuesday flew past the most distant world ever studied by humankind, Ultima Thule, a frozen relic of the early solar system that could reveal how planets formed. "Go New Horizons!" said lead scientist Alan Stern as a crowd cheered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to mark the moment at 12:33 am (0533 GMT) when the New Horizons spacecraft aimed its cameras at the space rock four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away. "Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away." The spaceship was to collect 900 images over the course of a few seconds as it shaved by at a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,500 kilometers). "Now it is just a matter of time to see the data coming down," said deputy project scientist John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute. Scientists expect to learn whether the pass was successful around 10 am (1500 GMT).

NASA spacecraft makes historic flyby of Ultima Thule, distant world ever studied

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-spacecraft-makes-historic-flyby-of-ultima-thule-distant-world-ever-studied-187648">NASA</a>'s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft broke a record after successfully entering into orbit around the asteroid Bennu — the smallest cosmic object ever to be orbited by a spacecraft.

While many on Earth prepared to welcome the New Year, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, 110 million kilometres away, carried out a single, eight-second burn of its thrusters, NASA said in a statement.

The manoeuvre placed the spacecraft into orbit around the asteroid Bennu.

"The team continued our long string of successes by executing the orbit-insertion manoeuvre perfectly," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in the US.

"With the navigation campaign coming to an end, we are looking forward to the scientific mapping and sample site selection phase of the mission," said Lauretta.

"Entering orbit around Bennu is an amazing accomplishment that our team has been planning for years," he said.

Inching around the asteroid at a snail's pace, OSIRIS-REx's first orbit marks a leap for humankind. Never before has a spacecraft from Earth circled so close to such a small space object — one with barely enough gravity to keep a vehicle in a stable orbit.

"The gravity of Bennu is so small, forces like solar radiation and thermal pressure from Bennu's surface become much more relevant and can push the spacecraft around in its orbit much more than if it were orbiting around Earth or Mars, where gravity is by far the most dominant force," said Dan Wibben, OSIRIS-REx Maneuver and Trajectory Design Lead.

The spacecraft will circle Bennu about 1.75 kilometres from its centre, closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study.&nbsp;

Previously the closest orbit of a planetary body was in May 2016, when the Rosetta spacecraft orbited about seven kilometres from the centre of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The comfortable distance is necessary to keep the spacecraft locked to Bennu, which has a gravity force only 5-millionths as strong as Earth's. The spacecraft is scheduled to orbit Bennu through mid-February at a leisurely 62 hours per orbit.

Now that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is closer to Bennu, physical details about the asteroid will leap into sharper focus, and the spacecraft's tour of this rubble pile of primordial debris will become increasingly detailed and focused.

"Our orbit design is highly dependent on Bennu's physical properties, such as its mass and gravity field, which we didn't know before we arrived," said OSIRIS-REx's flight dynamics system manager Mike Moreau, who is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in the US.

"Up until now, we had to account for a wide variety of possible scenarios in our computer simulations to make sure we could safely navigate the spacecraft so close to Bennu. As the team learned more about the asteroid, we incorporated new information to hone in on the final orbit design," he said.

The simulations have played a critical role. The OSIRIS-REx mission, after all, was designed based on complex computer programs that predicted the properties of Bennu and how the spacecraft's trajectory would behave.

This diligent preparation allowed the team to navigate the vehicle safely to Bennu in December and put some questions to rest and to fly over its poles and equator in a preliminary survey that led to some surprises.

The OSIRIS-REx team will resume science operations in late February. At that point, the spacecraft will perform a series of close flybys of Bennu for several months to take high-resolution images of every square inch of the asteroid to help select a sampling site.&nbsp;

During the summer of 2020, the spacecraft will briefly touch the surface of Bennu to retrieve a sample. The OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to deliver the sample to Earth in September 2023.

The spacecraft will circle the asteroid Bennu about 1.75 kilometres from its centre, closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft broke a record after successfully entering into orbit around the asteroid Bennu — the smallest cosmic object ever to be orbited by a spacecraft. While many on Earth prepared to welcome the New Year, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, 110 million kilometres away, carried out a single, eight-second burn of its thrusters, NASA said in a statement. The manoeuvre placed the spacecraft into orbit around the asteroid Bennu. "The team continued our long string of successes by executing the orbit-insertion manoeuvre perfectly," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in the US. "With the navigation campaign coming to an end, we are looking forward to the scientific mapping and sample site selection phase of the mission," said Lauretta. "Entering orbit around Bennu is an amazing accomplishment that our team has been planning for years," he said. Inching around the asteroid at a snail's pace, OSIRIS-REx's first orbit marks a leap for humankind. Never before has a spacecraft from Earth circled so close to such a small space object — one with barely enough gravity to keep a vehicle in a stable orbit. "The gravity of Bennu is so small, forces like solar radiation and thermal pressure from Bennu's surface become much more relevant and can push the spacecraft around in its orbit much more than if it were orbiting around Earth or Mars, where gravity is by far the most dominant force," said Dan Wibben, OSIRIS-REx Maneuver and Trajectory Design Lead. The spacecraft will circle Bennu about 1.75 kilometres from its centre, closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study. Previously the closest orbit of a planetary body was in May 2016, when the Rosetta spacecraft orbited about seven kilometres from the centre of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comfortable distance is necessary to keep the spacecraft locked to Bennu, which has a gravity force only 5-millionths as strong as Earth's. The spacecraft is scheduled to orbit Bennu through mid-February at a leisurely 62 hours per orbit. Now that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is closer to Bennu, physical details about the asteroid will leap into sharper focus, and the spacecraft's tour of this rubble pile of primordial debris will become increasingly detailed and focused. "Our orbit design is highly dependent on Bennu's physical properties, such as its mass and gravity field, which we didn't know before we arrived," said OSIRIS-REx's flight dynamics system manager Mike Moreau, who is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in the US. "Up until now, we had to account for a wide variety of possible scenarios in our computer simulations to make sure we could safely navigate the spacecraft so close to Bennu. As the team learned more about the asteroid, we incorporated new information to hone in on the final orbit design," he said. The simulations have played a critical role. The OSIRIS-REx mission, after all, was designed based on complex computer programs that predicted the properties of Bennu and how the spacecraft's trajectory would behave. This diligent preparation allowed the team to navigate the vehicle safely to Bennu in December and put some questions to rest and to fly over its poles and equator in a preliminary survey that led to some surprises. The OSIRIS-REx team will resume science operations in late February. At that point, the spacecraft will perform a series of close flybys of Bennu for several months to take high-resolution images of every square inch of the asteroid to help select a sampling site. During the summer of 2020, the spacecraft will briefly touch the surface of Bennu to retrieve a sample. The OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to deliver the sample to Earth in September 2023.

NASA spacecraft breaks record for smallest space object ever orbited

A NASA spaceship is zooming toward the farthest, and quite possibly the oldest, cosmic body ever photographed by humankind, a tiny, distant world called Ultima Thule some four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away.

The US space agency will ring in the New Year with a live online broadcast to mark historic flyby of the mysterious object in a dark and frigid region of space known as the Kuiper Belt at 12:33 am January 1 (local time).

A guitar anthem recorded by legendary Queen guitarist Brian May - who also holds an advanced degree in astrophysics - will be released just after midnight to accompany a video simulation of the flyby, as NASA commentators describe the close pass on www.Nasa.Gov/nasalive.

Real-time video of the actual flyby is impossible since it takes more six hours for a signal sent from Earth to reach the spaceship, named New Horizons, and another six hours for the response to arrive.

But if all goes well, the first images should be in hand by the end of New Year's Day.

And judging by the latest tweet from Alan Stern, the lead scientist on the New Horizons mission, the excitement among team members is palpable.

"IT'S HAPPENING!! Flyby is upon us! @NewHorizons2015 is healthy and on course! The farthest exploration of worlds in history!" he wrote on Saturday.

Scientists are not sure what Ultima Thule (pronounced TOO-lee) looks like - whether it is round or oblong or even if it is a single object or a cluster.

It was discovered in 2014 with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, and is believed to be 12-20 miles (20-30 kilometers) in size.

Scientists decided to study it with New Horizons after the spaceship, which launched in 2006, completed its main mission of flying by Pluto in 2015, returning the most detailed images ever taken of the dwarf planet.

"At closest approach we are going to try to image Ultima at three times the resolution we had for Pluto," said Stern.

"If we can accomplish that it will be spectacular." Hurtling through space at a speed of 32,000 miles (51,500 kilometers) per hour, the spacecraft aims to make its closest approach within 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of the surface of Ultima Thule.

The flyby will be fast, at a speed of nine miles (14 kilometers) per second. Seven instruments on board will record high-resolution images and gather data about its size and composition.

Ultima Thule is named for a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography, according to NASA.

"Ultima Thule means 'beyond Thule' - beyond the borders of the known world - symbolising the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done," the US space agency said in a statement.

According to project scientist Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, mankind didn't even know the Kuiper Belt - a vast ring of relics from the formation days of the solar system - existed until the 1990s. "This is the frontier of planetary science," said Weaver.

"We finally have reached the outskirts of the solar system, these things that have been there since the beginning and have hardly changed - we think. We will find out."

Despite the partial US government shutdown, sparked by a feud over funding for a border wall with Mexico between President Donald Trump and opposition Democrats,

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine vowed that the US space agency would broadcast the flyby.

Normally, NASA TV and NASA's website would go dark during a government shutdown.

NASA will also provide updates about another spacecraft, called OSIRIS-REx, that will enter orbit around the asteroid Bennu on New Year's Eve, Bridenstine said.

A NASA spaceship is zooming toward the farthest, and quite possibly the oldest, cosmic body ever photographed by humankind, a tiny, distant world called Ultima Thule some four billion miles (6.

A NASA spaceship is zooming toward the farthest, and quite possibly the oldest, cosmic body ever photographed by humankind, a tiny, distant world called Ultima Thule some four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away. The US space agency will ring in the New Year with a live online broadcast to mark historic flyby of the mysterious object in a dark and frigid region of space known as the Kuiper Belt at 12:33 am January 1 (local time). A guitar anthem recorded by legendary Queen guitarist Brian May - who also holds an advanced degree in astrophysics - will be released just after midnight to accompany a video simulation of the flyby, as NASA commentators describe the close pass on www.Nasa.Gov/nasalive. Real-time video of the actual flyby is impossible since it takes more six hours for a signal sent from Earth to reach the spaceship, named New Horizons, and another six hours for the response to arrive. But if all goes well, the first images should be in hand by the end of New Year's Day. And judging by the latest tweet from Alan Stern, the lead scientist on the New Horizons mission, the excitement among team members is palpable. "IT'S HAPPENING!! Flyby is upon us! @NewHorizons2015 is healthy and on course! The farthest exploration of worlds in history!" he wrote on Saturday. Scientists are not sure what Ultima Thule (pronounced TOO-lee) looks like - whether it is round or oblong or even if it is a single object or a cluster. It was discovered in 2014 with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, and is believed to be 12-20 miles (20-30 kilometers) in size. Scientists decided to study it with New Horizons after the spaceship, which launched in 2006, completed its main mission of flying by Pluto in 2015, returning the most detailed images ever taken of the dwarf planet. "At closest approach we are going to try to image Ultima at three times the resolution we had for Pluto," said Stern. "If we can accomplish that it will be spectacular." Hurtling through space at a speed of 32,000 miles (51,500 kilometers) per hour, the spacecraft aims to make its closest approach within 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of the surface of Ultima Thule. The flyby will be fast, at a speed of nine miles (14 kilometers) per second. Seven instruments on board will record high-resolution images and gather data about its size and composition. Ultima Thule is named for a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography, according to NASA. "Ultima Thule means 'beyond Thule' - beyond the borders of the known world - symbolising the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done," the US space agency said in a statement. According to project scientist Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, mankind didn't even know the Kuiper Belt - a vast ring of relics from the formation days of the solar system - existed until the 1990s. "This is the frontier of planetary science," said Weaver. "We finally have reached the outskirts of the solar system, these things that have been there since the beginning and have hardly changed - we think. We will find out." Despite the partial US government shutdown, sparked by a feud over funding for a border wall with Mexico between President Donald Trump and opposition Democrats, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine vowed that the US space agency would broadcast the flyby. Normally, NASA TV and NASA's website would go dark during a government shutdown. NASA will also provide updates about another spacecraft, called OSIRIS-REx, that will enter orbit around the asteroid Bennu on New Year's Eve, Bridenstine said.

NASA spaceship zooms toward farthest world ever photographed

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasas-intrepid-voyager-2-probe-crosses-into-interstellar-space-183047">NASA'</a>s unmanned New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on its historic New Year's flyby target, the most distant world ever studied, a frozen relic of the solar system some four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) away.

The cosmic object, known as Ultima Thule, is about the size of the US capital, Washington, and orbits in the dark and frigid Kuiper Belt about a billion miles beyond the dwarf planet, Pluto.

The spacecraft's closest approach to this primitive space rock comes January 1 at 12:33 am ET (0533 GMT).&nbsp;

Until then, what it looks like, and what it is made of, remain a mystery.

"This is a time capsule that is going to take us back four and a half billion years to the birth of the solar system," said Alan Stern, the principal investigator on the project at the Southwest Research Institute, during a press briefing Friday.

A camera on board the New Horizons spacecraft is currently zooming in on Ultima Thule, so scientists can get a better sense of its shape and configuration — whether it is one object or several.

"We've never been to a type of object like this before," said Kelsi Singer, New Horizons co-investigator at the Southwest Research Institute.&nbsp;

About a day prior, "we will start to see what the actual shape of the object is," she said.

The spacecraft entered "encounter mode" on December 26, and is "very healthy," added Stern.

Communicating with a spacecraft that is so far away takes six hours and eight minutes each way — or about 12 hours and 15 minutes round trip.

New Horizons' eagerly awaited "phone home" command, indicating if it survived the close pass — at a distance of just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometres) — is expected January 1 at 10:29 am (1529 GMT).

Until then, the New Horizons spacecraft continues speeding through space at 32,000 miles (51,500 kilometres) per hour, travelling almost a million miles per day.

And <a href="http://www.wionews.com/entertainment/nasa-offers-advice-to-marvel-after-anguished-fans-seek-help-to-bring-back-tony-stark-from-space-182864">NASA scientists</a> are eagerly awaiting the first images.

"Because this is a flyby mission, we only have one chance to get it right," said Alice Bowman, missions operations manager for New Horizons.&nbsp;

The spacecraft, which launched in 2006, captured stunning images of Pluto when it flew by the dwarf planet in 2015. 
&nbsp;

NASA's unmanned New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on its historic New Year's flyby target, the most distant world ever studied, a frozen relic of the solar system some four billion miles (6.

NASA's unmanned New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on its historic New Year's flyby target, the most distant world ever studied, a frozen relic of the solar system some four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) away. The cosmic object, known as Ultima Thule, is about the size of the US capital, Washington, and orbits in the dark and frigid Kuiper Belt about a billion miles beyond the dwarf planet, Pluto. The spacecraft's closest approach to this primitive space rock comes January 1 at 12:33 am ET (0533 GMT). Until then, what it looks like, and what it is made of, remain a mystery. "This is a time capsule that is going to take us back four and a half billion years to the birth of the solar system," said Alan Stern, the principal investigator on the project at the Southwest Research Institute, during a press briefing Friday. A camera on board the New Horizons spacecraft is currently zooming in on Ultima Thule, so scientists can get a better sense of its shape and configuration — whether it is one object or several. "We've never been to a type of object like this before," said Kelsi Singer, New Horizons co-investigator at the Southwest Research Institute. About a day prior, "we will start to see what the actual shape of the object is," she said. The spacecraft entered "encounter mode" on December 26, and is "very healthy," added Stern. Communicating with a spacecraft that is so far away takes six hours and eight minutes each way — or about 12 hours and 15 minutes round trip. New Horizons' eagerly awaited "phone home" command, indicating if it survived the close pass — at a distance of just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometres) — is expected January 1 at 10:29 am (1529 GMT). Until then, the New Horizons spacecraft continues speeding through space at 32,000 miles (51,500 kilometres) per hour, travelling almost a million miles per day. And NASA scientists are eagerly awaiting the first images. "Because this is a flyby mission, we only have one chance to get it right," said Alice Bowman, missions operations manager for New Horizons. The spacecraft, which launched in 2006, captured stunning images of Pluto when it flew by the dwarf planet in 2015.

NASA's unmanned spaceship closes in on most distant world ever studied

In pics: NASA's five successful satellite missions in 2018

Voyager 2, a NASA probe launched in 1977 and designed for just a five-year mission, has become only the second human-made object to enter interstellar space as it continues its marathon trek billions of miles (km) from Earth, scientists said on Monday.

Data from instruments aboard the spacecraft showed it crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere, a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields produced by the sun, on November 5, the US space agency said.

The boundary crossed by the intrepid probe as it journeys a bit more than 11 billion miles (18 billion km) from Earth is called the heliopause, a place where the hot solar wind runs up against the interstellar medium, the soup of stuff residing between the stars of our Milky Way galaxy.

"This is a very exciting time again in Voyager's 41-year journey, so far, of exploring the planets and now the heliosphere and entering interstellar space," Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech, told a news briefing.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, 16 days before its twin probe Voyager 1, which reached interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2's instrument called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS) is able to provide observations of the nature of this region of space. While Voyager 1 is still going strong on its own journey in interstellar space, its PLS stopped working in 1980.

The Voyager probes were designed to last five years and study the giant gas planets Jupiter and Saturn. Their refusal to die has also let them study Uranus and Neptune, the solar system's outermost giant planets.

Both probes carry a phonograph record. The gold-plated copper disk bears sounds, images and spoken greetings in multiple languages to depict Earth's diversity of life and culture, intended to communicate with potential extraterrestrial beings who may encounter them.

The two probes have not officially exited the solar system, whose outermost region is a shell called the Oort Cloud comprised of numerous small icy objects still under the sun's gravitational influence.

"I often get asked, 'So, is this it for Voyager? You've crossed out of the heliopause. Is it done? Are we finished?' Absolutely not. This is really, for me, the beginning of a new era of heliophysics science," said Nicola Fox, director of the heliophysics division at NASA headquarters.

"We are fortunate enough to have two very brave sentinels that have left our heliosphere and are out truly looking at the other side of the boundary," Fox added.

Voyager 2, a NASA probe launched in 1977 and designed for just a five-year mission, has become only the second human-made object to enter interstellar space as it continues its marathon trek billions of miles (km) from Earth, scientists said on Monday.

Voyager 2, a NASA probe launched in 1977 and designed for just a five-year mission, has become only the second human-made object to enter interstellar space as it continues its marathon trek billions of miles (km) from Earth, scientists said on Monday. Data from instruments aboard the spacecraft showed it crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere, a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields produced by the sun, on November 5, the US space agency said. The boundary crossed by the intrepid probe as it journeys a bit more than 11 billion miles (18 billion km) from Earth is called the heliopause, a place where the hot solar wind runs up against the interstellar medium, the soup of stuff residing between the stars of our Milky Way galaxy. "This is a very exciting time again in Voyager's 41-year journey, so far, of exploring the planets and now the heliosphere and entering interstellar space," Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech, told a news briefing. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, 16 days before its twin probe Voyager 1, which reached interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2's instrument called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS) is able to provide observations of the nature of this region of space. While Voyager 1 is still going strong on its own journey in interstellar space, its PLS stopped working in 1980. The Voyager probes were designed to last five years and study the giant gas planets Jupiter and Saturn. Their refusal to die has also let them study Uranus and Neptune, the solar system's outermost giant planets. Both probes carry a phonograph record. The gold-plated copper disk bears sounds, images and spoken greetings in multiple languages to depict Earth's diversity of life and culture, intended to communicate with potential extraterrestrial beings who may encounter them. The two probes have not officially exited the solar system, whose outermost region is a shell called the Oort Cloud comprised of numerous small icy objects still under the sun's gravitational influence. "I often get asked, 'So, is this it for Voyager? You've crossed out of the heliopause. Is it done? Are we finished?' Absolutely not. This is really, for me, the beginning of a new era of heliophysics science," said Nicola Fox, director of the heliophysics division at NASA headquarters. "We are fortunate enough to have two very brave sentinels that have left our heliosphere and are out truly looking at the other side of the boundary," Fox added.

Watch: NASA's intrepid Voyager 2 probe crosses into interstellar space

'Part of the journey is the end,' says Tony Stark as he is shown sending a farewell message to Miss Pots in the trailer of 'Avengers: Endgame'. As Marvel dropped the trailer of the highly anticipated Avengers 4 on Friday, fans of the franchise saw a distraught Tony Stark recording a message to his ladylove, while being stuck in a spacecraft far away from earth.&nbsp;

"Dear Miss Potts, if you find this recording don’t feel bad about this, part of the journey is the end. Just for the record being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds. Food and water ran out four days ago, oxygen will run out tomorrow morning and I mean it, when I drift off I will dream about you, it’s always you," says Stark at the beginning of the trailer which picks up from where 'Avengers: Infinity War' ended.&nbsp;

The speech was so effective that it led to several fans seeking help from NASA to rescue the popular superhero. In the last few days, NASA has been flooded with tweets, asking them to bring back Stark to Earth. On Sunday, NASA's official twitter responded to Marvel dolling out some advice on how to bring back their hero.&nbsp;

NASA tweeted, "Hey @Marvel, we heard about Tony Stark. As we know, the first thing you should do is listen in mission control for “@Avengers, we have a problem.” But if he can’t communicate, then we recommend ground teams use all resources to scan the skies for your missing man(sic)"

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Hey <a href="https://twitter.com/Marvel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Marvel</a>, we heard about Tony Stark. As we know, the first thing you should do is listen in mission control for “<a href="https://twitter.com/Avengers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Avengers</a>, we have a problem.” But if he can’t communicate, then we recommend ground teams use all resources to scan the skies for your missing man <a href="https://t.co/zavXrsPljq">pic.twitter.com/zavXrsPljq</a>
— NASA (@NASA) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1071818572056403970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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A twitter follower with a sharp eye, observed the image that NASA had tweeted and wondered if Thor would ultimately bring him back.&nbsp;

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Finally found the hammer. <a href="https://t.co/b18zTRV9Ep">pic.twitter.com/b18zTRV9Ep</a>
— Darshan Baid (@frunkad) <a href="https://twitter.com/frunkad/status/1071826116501880832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Since Friday, when Marvel dropped the first trailer of the film, fans have been seeking out help.&nbsp;

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dear <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA</a>, PLEASE please find Tony Stark that poor guy is floating somewhere up in space and is running out of oxygen. WE NEED YOUR HELP.
— 𝔑𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔢 (@Nahdizzle) <a href="https://twitter.com/Nahdizzle/status/1071714430587555840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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what are u doing nasa Tony Stark’s in space go save him he’s dying. <a href="https://t.co/Fr5073MCSI">pic.twitter.com/Fr5073MCSI</a>
— Bobert Duckey Jr (@juzahoneybunnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/juzahoneybunnie/status/1071737642734108672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Hello Mr <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA</a> can you please rescue Tony Stark he's stuck somewhere in outer space and his food and water supply ran out four days ago his oxygen levels are depleting WE DONT KNOW HOW LONG HE HAS BEFORE HE DRIFTS OFF PLEASE <a href="https://t.co/nlsISwYAVK">pic.twitter.com/nlsISwYAVK</a>
— 🍑 adie (@yeheypizza) <a href="https://twitter.com/yeheypizza/status/1071717922173681664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Some even send Elon Musk SOS messages to which Musk replied in the affirmative.&nbsp;

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Machete!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1071843189705719808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The last film in the 'Avengers' franchise, the film is set to release in April 2019.&nbsp;

'Part of the journey is the end,' says Tony Stark as he is shown sending a farewell message to Miss Pots in the trailer of 'Avengers: Endgame'. As Marvel dropped the trailer of the highly anticipated Avengers 4 on Friday, fans of the franchise saw a distraught Tony Stark recording a message to his ladylove, while being stuck in a spacecraft far away from earth.

'Part of the journey is the end,' says Tony Stark as he is shown sending a farewell message to Miss Pots in the trailer of 'Avengers: Endgame'. As Marvel dropped the trailer of the highly anticipated Avengers 4 on Friday, fans of the franchise saw a distraught Tony Stark recording a message to his ladylove, while being stuck in a spacecraft far away from earth. "Dear Miss Potts, if you find this recording don’t feel bad about this, part of the journey is the end. Just for the record being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds. Food and water ran out four days ago, oxygen will run out tomorrow morning and I mean it, when I drift off I will dream about you, it’s always you," says Stark at the beginning of the trailer which picks up from where 'Avengers: Infinity War' ended. The speech was so effective that it led to several fans seeking help from NASA to rescue the popular superhero. In the last few days, NASA has been flooded with tweets, asking them to bring back Stark to Earth. On Sunday, NASA's official twitter responded to Marvel dolling out some advice on how to bring back their hero. NASA tweeted, "Hey @Marvel, we heard about Tony Stark. As we know, the first thing you should do is listen in mission control for “@Avengers, we have a problem.” But if he can’t communicate, then we recommend ground teams use all resources to scan the skies for your missing man(sic)" Hey @Marvel, we heard about Tony Stark. As we know, the first thing you should do is listen in mission control for “@Avengers, we have a problem.” But if he can’t communicate, then we recommend ground teams use all resources to scan the skies for your missing man pic.twitter.com/zavXrsPljq — NASA (@NASA) December 9, 2018 × A twitter follower with a sharp eye, observed the image that NASA had tweeted and wondered if Thor would ultimately bring him back. Finally found the hammer. pic.twitter.com/b18zTRV9Ep — Darshan Baid (@frunkad) December 9, 2018 × Since Friday, when Marvel dropped the first trailer of the film, fans have been seeking out help. dear @NASA, PLEASE please find Tony Stark that poor guy is floating somewhere up in space and is running out of oxygen. WE NEED YOUR HELP. — 𝔑𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔢 (@Nahdizzle) December 9, 2018 × what are u doing nasa Tony Stark’s in space go save him he’s dying. pic.twitter.com/Fr5073MCSI — Bobert Duckey Jr (@juzahoneybunnie) December 9, 2018 × Hello Mr @NASA can you please rescue Tony Stark he's stuck somewhere in outer space and his food and water supply ran out four days ago his oxygen levels are depleting WE DONT KNOW HOW LONG HE HAS BEFORE HE DRIFTS OFF PLEASE pic.twitter.com/nlsISwYAVK — 🍑 adie (@yeheypizza) December 9, 2018 × Some even send Elon Musk SOS messages to which Musk replied in the affirmative. Machete!! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2018 × The last film in the 'Avengers' franchise, the film is set to release in April 2019.

NASA tells Marvel how to rescue Tony Stark from space

China launched a rover early Saturday destined to land on the far side of the moon, a global first that would boost Beijing's ambitions to become a space superpower, state media said.

The Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission -- named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology -- launched on a Long March 3B rocket from the southwestern Xichang launch centre at 2:23 am (1823 GMT), according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The blast-off marked the start of a long journey to the far side of the moon for the Chang'e-4 mission, expected to land around the New Year to carry out experiments and survey the untrodden terrain.

Xinhua said the successful launch had opened "a new chapter in lunar exploration".

Unlike the near side of the moon that is "tidally locked" and always faces the earth, and offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side is mountainous and rugged.

It was not until 1959 that the Soviet Union captured the first images of the heavily cratered surface, uncloaking some of the mystery of the moon's "dark side".

No lander or rover has ever touched the surface there, positioning China as the first nation to explore the area.

"China over the past 10 or 20 years has been systematically ticking off the various firsts that America and the Soviet Union did in the 1960s and 1970s in space exploration," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"This is one of the first times they've done something that no one else has done before."

Next up: Humans

It is no easy technological feat -- China has been preparing for this moment for years.

A major challenge for such a mission is communicating with the robotic lander: as the far side of the moon always points away from earth, there is no direct "line of sight" for signals.

As a solution, China in May blasted the Queqiao ("Magpie Bridge") satellite into the moon's orbit, positioning it so that it can relay data and commands between the lander and earth.

Adding to the difficulties, Chang'e-4 is being sent to the Aitken Basin in the lunar south pole region -- known for its craggy and complex terrain -- state media has said.

The probe is carrying six experiments from China and four from abroad.

They include low-frequency radio astronomical studies -- aiming to take advantage of the lack of interference on the far side -- as well as mineral and radiation tests, Xinhua cited the China National Space Administration as saying.

The experiments also involve planting potato and other seeds, according to Chinese media reports.

Beijing is pouring billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022, and of eventually sending humans to the moon.

The Chang'e 4 mission is a step in that direction, significant for the engineering expertise needed to explore and settle the moon, McDowell said.

"The main thing about this mission is not science, this is a technology mission," he said.

'National pride'

Chang'e-4 will be the second Chinese probe to land on the moon, following the Yutu ("Jade Rabbit") rover mission in 2013.

Once on the moon's surface, the rover faces an array of extreme challenges.

During the lunar night -- which lasts 14 earth days -- temperatures will drop as low as minus 173 degrees Celsius (minus 279 Fahrenheit). During the lunar day, also lasting 14 earth days, temperatures soar as high as 127 C (261 F).

The rover's instruments must withstand those fluctuations and it must generate enough energy to sustain it during the long night.

Yutu conquered those challenges and, after initial setbacks, ultimately surveyed the moon's surface for 31 months. Its success provided a major boost to China's space programme.

Beijing is planning to send another lunar lander, Chang'e-5, next year to collect samples and bring them back to earth.

It is among a slew of ambitious Chinese targets, which include a reusable launcher by 2021, a super-powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those NASA and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a moon base, a permanently crewed space station, and a Mars rover.

"Our country's successful lunar exploration project not only vaults us to the top of the world's space power ranks, it also allows the exploration of the far side of the moon," said Niu Min, a booster and expert on China's space programme.

The project, he said in an interview with local website Netease, "greatly inspires everyone's national pride and self-confidence".

China launched a rover early Saturday destined to land on the far side of the moon, a global first that would boost Beijing's ambitions to become a space superpower, state media said.

China launched a rover early Saturday destined to land on the far side of the moon, a global first that would boost Beijing's ambitions to become a space superpower, state media said. The Chang'e-4 lunar probe mission -- named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology -- launched on a Long March 3B rocket from the southwestern Xichang launch centre at 2:23 am (1823 GMT), according to the official Xinhua news agency. The blast-off marked the start of a long journey to the far side of the moon for the Chang'e-4 mission, expected to land around the New Year to carry out experiments and survey the untrodden terrain. Xinhua said the successful launch had opened "a new chapter in lunar exploration". Unlike the near side of the moon that is "tidally locked" and always faces the earth, and offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side is mountainous and rugged. It was not until 1959 that the Soviet Union captured the first images of the heavily cratered surface, uncloaking some of the mystery of the moon's "dark side". No lander or rover has ever touched the surface there, positioning China as the first nation to explore the area. "China over the past 10 or 20 years has been systematically ticking off the various firsts that America and the Soviet Union did in the 1960s and 1970s in space exploration," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "This is one of the first times they've done something that no one else has done before." Next up: Humans It is no easy technological feat -- China has been preparing for this moment for years. A major challenge for such a mission is communicating with the robotic lander: as the far side of the moon always points away from earth, there is no direct "line of sight" for signals. As a solution, China in May blasted the Queqiao ("Magpie Bridge") satellite into the moon's orbit, positioning it so that it can relay data and commands between the lander and earth. Adding to the difficulties, Chang'e-4 is being sent to the Aitken Basin in the lunar south pole region -- known for its craggy and complex terrain -- state media has said. The probe is carrying six experiments from China and four from abroad. They include low-frequency radio astronomical studies -- aiming to take advantage of the lack of interference on the far side -- as well as mineral and radiation tests, Xinhua cited the China National Space Administration as saying. The experiments also involve planting potato and other seeds, according to Chinese media reports. Beijing is pouring billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022, and of eventually sending humans to the moon. The Chang'e 4 mission is a step in that direction, significant for the engineering expertise needed to explore and settle the moon, McDowell said. "The main thing about this mission is not science, this is a technology mission," he said. 'National pride' Chang'e-4 will be the second Chinese probe to land on the moon, following the Yutu ("Jade Rabbit") rover mission in 2013. Once on the moon's surface, the rover faces an array of extreme challenges. During the lunar night -- which lasts 14 earth days -- temperatures will drop as low as minus 173 degrees Celsius (minus 279 Fahrenheit). During the lunar day, also lasting 14 earth days, temperatures soar as high as 127 C (261 F). The rover's instruments must withstand those fluctuations and it must generate enough energy to sustain it during the long night. Yutu conquered those challenges and, after initial setbacks, ultimately surveyed the moon's surface for 31 months. Its success provided a major boost to China's space programme. Beijing is planning to send another lunar lander, Chang'e-5, next year to collect samples and bring them back to earth. It is among a slew of ambitious Chinese targets, which include a reusable launcher by 2021, a super-powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those NASA and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a moon base, a permanently crewed space station, and a Mars rover. "Our country's successful lunar exploration project not only vaults us to the top of the world's space power ranks, it also allows the exploration of the far side of the moon," said Niu Min, a booster and expert on China's space programme. The project, he said in an interview with local website Netease, "greatly inspires everyone's national pride and self-confidence".

China launches rover for first far side of the moon landing

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-rocket-to-image-earths-leaky-atmosphere-180849">&nbsp;NASA'</a>s deep space explorer Osiris-Rex flew on Monday to within a dozen miles of its destination, a skyscraper-sized asteroid believed to hold organic compounds fundamental to life as well as the potential to collide with Earth in about 150 years.&nbsp;

Launched in September 2016, Osiris-Rex embarked on NASA's unprecedented seven-year mission to conduct a close-up survey of the asteroid Bennu, collect a sample from its surface and return that material to Earth for study.

Bennu, a rocky mass roughly a third of a mile wide and shaped like a giant acorn, orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth and is thought to be rich in carbon-based organic molecules dating back to the earliest days of the solar system. Water, another vital component to the evolution of life, may also be trapped in the asteroid's minerals.

Scientists believe that asteroids and comets crashing into early Earth delivered organic compounds and water that seeded the planet for life, and atomic-level analysis of samples from Bennu could help prove that theory.

But there is another, more existential reason to study Bennu.

Scientists estimate there is a one-in-2,700 chance of the asteroid slamming catastrophically into Earth 166 years from now. That probability ranks Bennu No. 2 on NASA's catalog of 72 near-Earth objects potentially capable of hitting the planet.

Osiris-Rex will help scientists understand how heat radiated from the sun is gently steering Bennu on an increasingly menacing course through the solar system. That solar energy is believed to be nudging the asteroid ever closer toward Earth's path each time the asteroid makes its closest approach to our planet every six years.

"By the time we collect the sample in 2020 we will have a much better idea of the probability that Bennu would impact Earth in the next 150 years," mission spokeswoman Erin Morton said.

Scientists have estimated that in 2135 Bennu could pass closer to Earth than the moon, which orbits at a distance of about 250,000 miles, and possibly come closer still sometime between 2175 and 2195.

Osiris-Rex reached the "preliminary survey" phase of its mission on Monday, soaring to within 12 miles of the asteroid. The spacecraft will pass just 1.2 miles from Bennu in late December, where it will enter the object's gravitational pull.

From that stage, the spacecraft will begin gradually tightening its orbit around the asteroid, spiraling to within just 6 feet of its surface. Osiris-Rex will then extend its robot arm to snatch a sample of Bennu's terrain in a "touch-and-go" maneuver set for July 2020.

Osiris-Rex will later fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid specimen for a parachute descent in the Utah desert in September 2023.

NASA is developing a strategy for deflecting Bennu, or any other asteroid found to be on a collision course with Earth, by use of a special spacecraft to slam into the object hard enough to nudge it onto a safer path, said Lindley Johnson, a planetary defence officer with NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

"But this is all dependent on the outcome of a very close approach that Bennu has with Earth in September 2135," Johnson said. "We’ll just need to wait and see. Rather, our great-great-grandchildren will need to see."

NASA's deep space explorer Osiris-Rex flew on Monday to within a dozen miles of its destination, a skyscraper-sized asteroid believed to hold organic compounds fundamental to life as well as the potential to collide with Earth in about 150 years.

NASA's deep space explorer Osiris-Rex flew on Monday to within a dozen miles of its destination, a skyscraper-sized asteroid believed to hold organic compounds fundamental to life as well as the potential to collide with Earth in about 150 years. Launched in September 2016, Osiris-Rex embarked on NASA's unprecedented seven-year mission to conduct a close-up survey of the asteroid Bennu, collect a sample from its surface and return that material to Earth for study. Bennu, a rocky mass roughly a third of a mile wide and shaped like a giant acorn, orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth and is thought to be rich in carbon-based organic molecules dating back to the earliest days of the solar system. Water, another vital component to the evolution of life, may also be trapped in the asteroid's minerals. Scientists believe that asteroids and comets crashing into early Earth delivered organic compounds and water that seeded the planet for life, and atomic-level analysis of samples from Bennu could help prove that theory. But there is another, more existential reason to study Bennu. Scientists estimate there is a one-in-2,700 chance of the asteroid slamming catastrophically into Earth 166 years from now. That probability ranks Bennu No. 2 on NASA's catalog of 72 near-Earth objects potentially capable of hitting the planet. Osiris-Rex will help scientists understand how heat radiated from the sun is gently steering Bennu on an increasingly menacing course through the solar system. That solar energy is believed to be nudging the asteroid ever closer toward Earth's path each time the asteroid makes its closest approach to our planet every six years. "By the time we collect the sample in 2020 we will have a much better idea of the probability that Bennu would impact Earth in the next 150 years," mission spokeswoman Erin Morton said. Scientists have estimated that in 2135 Bennu could pass closer to Earth than the moon, which orbits at a distance of about 250,000 miles, and possibly come closer still sometime between 2175 and 2195. Osiris-Rex reached the "preliminary survey" phase of its mission on Monday, soaring to within 12 miles of the asteroid. The spacecraft will pass just 1.2 miles from Bennu in late December, where it will enter the object's gravitational pull. From that stage, the spacecraft will begin gradually tightening its orbit around the asteroid, spiraling to within just 6 feet of its surface. Osiris-Rex will then extend its robot arm to snatch a sample of Bennu's terrain in a "touch-and-go" maneuver set for July 2020. Osiris-Rex will later fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid specimen for a parachute descent in the Utah desert in September 2023. NASA is developing a strategy for deflecting Bennu, or any other asteroid found to be on a collision course with Earth, by use of a special spacecraft to slam into the object hard enough to nudge it onto a safer path, said Lindley Johnson, a planetary defence officer with NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "But this is all dependent on the outcome of a very close approach that Bennu has with Earth in September 2135," Johnson said. "We’ll just need to wait and see. Rather, our great-great-grandchildren will need to see."

NASA deep space probe reaches asteroid deemed potential Earth threat

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasas-insight-sends-first-picture-from-mars-surface-after-safe-landing-179824">NASA is set to launch a sounding rocket</a> to get a closer look at the how the Earth's atmosphere is slowly leaking into space.

Understanding atmospheric escape on Earth has applications all over the Universe from predicting which far-off planets might be habitable, to piecing together how Mars became the desolate, exposed landscape it is today, the US space agency said.

The VISIONS-2 mission, short for Visualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral Atom Sensing-2, is scheduled to launch no earlier than December 4.

A sounding rocket makes brief, targeted flights into space before falling back to Earth just a few minutes later.

Sounding rockets are unique among scientific spacecraft for their superior dexterity.

They can be carted to remote locations, where they are aimed and shot into short-lived events -- like the sudden formation of the aurora borealis -- at a moment's notice.

The aurora borealis is of keen interest to the VISIONS-2 team, but not just for its otherworldly glow.

The aurora play are fundamental drivers in the process of atmospheric escape, whereby planets, including Earth, gradually leak their atmosphere into space.

"The Earth is losing weight," said Thomas Moore, a NASA space physicist.

"There have been enough observations to know that anywhere from a hundred to several hundred tonnes of atmosphere are going into space every day," Moore said.

Moore estimates that at that rate, the Earth will retain its atmosphere for a billion or so years.

Scientists had long thought that oxygen, weighing in at 16 times the mass of hydrogen, was too heavy to escape Earth's gravity.

However, near-Earth space is teeming with much more Earth-borne oxygen than anyone had expected.

The aurora is formed when energetic electrons, accelerated in the electric and magnetic fields in near-Earth space, crash into and excite atmospheric gases, which emit bright hues of red, green, and yellow as they relax back to a lower energy state.&nbsp;

These unruly electrons also create a cascade of havoc in the process, including driving electric currents that heat the upper atmosphere in splotchy patches.

In some cases, that heating is sufficient to give stray oxygen atoms enough energy to escape.

VISIONS-1, the current mission's precursor, launched from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska in 2013, where they studied oxygen outflow from aurora that form on Earth's night side, the part of the planet that is temporarily pointed away from the Sun.

For the VISIONS-2 mission, the team will travel to Svalbard a remote archipelago off the northern coast of Norway where dayside aurora can be found.

VISIONS-2 is the first of nine sounding rockets launching over the next 14 months as part of the Grand Challenge Initiative, an international collaboration to explore the unusual portal between Earth and space.&nbsp;

NASA is set to launch a sounding rocket to get a closer look at the how the Earth's atmosphere is slowly leaking into space. Understanding atmospheric escape on Earth has applications all over the Universe from predicting which far-off planets might be habitable, to piecing together how Mars became the desolate, exposed landscape it is today, the US space agency said.

NASA is set to launch a sounding rocket to get a closer look at the how the Earth's atmosphere is slowly leaking into space. Understanding atmospheric escape on Earth has applications all over the Universe from predicting which far-off planets might be habitable, to piecing together how Mars became the desolate, exposed landscape it is today, the US space agency said. The VISIONS-2 mission, short for Visualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral Atom Sensing-2, is scheduled to launch no earlier than December 4. A sounding rocket makes brief, targeted flights into space before falling back to Earth just a few minutes later. Sounding rockets are unique among scientific spacecraft for their superior dexterity. They can be carted to remote locations, where they are aimed and shot into short-lived events -- like the sudden formation of the aurora borealis -- at a moment's notice. The aurora borealis is of keen interest to the VISIONS-2 team, but not just for its otherworldly glow. The aurora play are fundamental drivers in the process of atmospheric escape, whereby planets, including Earth, gradually leak their atmosphere into space. "The Earth is losing weight," said Thomas Moore, a NASA space physicist. "There have been enough observations to know that anywhere from a hundred to several hundred tonnes of atmosphere are going into space every day," Moore said. Moore estimates that at that rate, the Earth will retain its atmosphere for a billion or so years. Scientists had long thought that oxygen, weighing in at 16 times the mass of hydrogen, was too heavy to escape Earth's gravity. However, near-Earth space is teeming with much more Earth-borne oxygen than anyone had expected. The aurora is formed when energetic electrons, accelerated in the electric and magnetic fields in near-Earth space, crash into and excite atmospheric gases, which emit bright hues of red, green, and yellow as they relax back to a lower energy state. These unruly electrons also create a cascade of havoc in the process, including driving electric currents that heat the upper atmosphere in splotchy patches. In some cases, that heating is sufficient to give stray oxygen atoms enough energy to escape. VISIONS-1, the current mission's precursor, launched from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska in 2013, where they studied oxygen outflow from aurora that form on Earth's night side, the part of the planet that is temporarily pointed away from the Sun. For the VISIONS-2 mission, the team will travel to Svalbard a remote archipelago off the northern coast of Norway where dayside aurora can be found. VISIONS-2 is the first of nine sounding rockets launching over the next 14 months as part of the Grand Challenge Initiative, an international collaboration to explore the unusual portal between Earth and space.

Earth's atmosphere leaking, NASA to send rocket to get closer look

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasa-to-review-workplace-culture-after-musk-smokes-marijuana-in-podcast-report-178516"> elaborated this week on the reasons</a> why the US space agency launched a safety review of SpaceX and Boeing, which are building spaceships for astronauts, including their workplace culture and drug-free policies.

Although NASA initially declined to <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/elon-musks-teslaquila-drink-faces-clash-with-mexican-tequila-industry-177254">confirm media reports</a> that the review was prompted by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's appearance on a filmed podcast in which he was smoking a joint, Bridenstine admitted Thursday, during a roundtable with reporters, it "was not helpful."

Musk reportedly took a hit of marijuana and sipped whiskey on a podcast streamed on the Internet.

He added that he was the one who called for the safety review, announced November 20, of the two companies tasked with building the spacecraft that will enable Americans once again to send people to space -- a capacity the US lost in 2011 with the retirement of the space shuttle program.

"We've had a number of conversations," Bridenstine was quoted as telling The Atlantic magazine.

"I will tell you, he (Musk) is as committed to safety as anybody, and he understands that that was not appropriate behavior, and you won't be seeing that again."

Speaking later to AFP, Bridenstine said the review shows how seriously NASA takes the safety of its astronauts.

"The reality is, we're getting ready to launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil for the first time since 2011, and we want to make sure we have a cultural assessment, a safety assessment of each of our providers," he said.

"If you look back at the history of how, when accidents have occurred in the past, there has always been a safety assessment after the fact and it includes things like leadership and culture and safety of the organizations that are involved in the mission," he added.

"We didn't want to wait until after there's an accident, because we don't believe there's going to be an accident, but we wanted to make sure that we do that assessment early and not after the fact."

SpaceX has been a contractor for NASA since 2012, ferrying supplies to the International Space Station aboard its Dragon cargo ship.

Next year, SpaceX is preparing for the first flight of its Dragon crew capsule, with two astronauts on board, launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

An empty test flight is planned for January 7, 2019 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine elaborated this week on the reasons why the US space agency launched a safety review of SpaceX and Boeing, which are building spaceships for astronauts, including their workplace culture and drug-free policies.

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine elaborated this week on the reasons why the US space agency launched a safety review of SpaceX and Boeing, which are building spaceships for astronauts, including their workplace culture and drug-free policies. Although NASA initially declined to confirm media reports that the review was prompted by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's appearance on a filmed podcast in which he was smoking a joint, Bridenstine admitted Thursday, during a roundtable with reporters, it "was not helpful." Musk reportedly took a hit of marijuana and sipped whiskey on a podcast streamed on the Internet. He added that he was the one who called for the safety review, announced November 20, of the two companies tasked with building the spacecraft that will enable Americans once again to send people to space -- a capacity the US lost in 2011 with the retirement of the space shuttle program. "We've had a number of conversations," Bridenstine was quoted as telling The Atlantic magazine. "I will tell you, he (Musk) is as committed to safety as anybody, and he understands that that was not appropriate behavior, and you won't be seeing that again." Speaking later to AFP, Bridenstine said the review shows how seriously NASA takes the safety of its astronauts. "The reality is, we're getting ready to launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil for the first time since 2011, and we want to make sure we have a cultural assessment, a safety assessment of each of our providers," he said. "If you look back at the history of how, when accidents have occurred in the past, there has always been a safety assessment after the fact and it includes things like leadership and culture and safety of the organizations that are involved in the mission," he added. "We didn't want to wait until after there's an accident, because we don't believe there's going to be an accident, but we wanted to make sure that we do that assessment early and not after the fact." SpaceX has been a contractor for NASA since 2012, ferrying supplies to the International Space Station aboard its Dragon cargo ship. Next year, SpaceX is preparing for the first flight of its Dragon crew capsule, with two astronauts on board, launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket. An empty test flight is planned for January 7, 2019 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Musk smokes marijuana: He understands it was not appropriate behavior, says NASA chief Bridenstine

NASA's InSight successfully lands on Mars

Watch: WION Gravitas, 27th November, 2018

WION Gravitas: NASA's InSight spacecraft lands on Mars

NASA's <a href="http://www.wionews.com/photos/nasa-counts-down-to-landing-of-martian-quake-sensor-insight-178934">InSight spacecraft</a>, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.

The landing data and initial photograph were relayed to Earth from two briefcase-sized satellites that were launched along with InSight and were flying past Mars as it reached its destination.&nbsp;

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Our Mars Odyssey orbiter phoned home, relaying news from <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAInSight?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASAInSight</a> indicating its solar panels are open &amp; collecting sunlight on the Martian surface. Also in the dispatch: this snapshot from the lander's arm showing the instruments in their new home: <a href="https://t.co/WygR5X2Px4">https://t.co/WygR5X2Px4</a> <a href="https://t.co/UwzBsu8BNe">pic.twitter.com/UwzBsu8BNe</a>
— NASA (@NASA) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1067257207799103488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The twin "Cubesats" tagging along for the flight to Mars represented the first deep-space use of a miniature satellite technology that space engineers see as a promising low-cost alternative to some larger, more complex vehicles.

The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the robotic arm of NASA's InSight lander, took the picture of the Martian surface on November 26, 2018, the same day the spacecraft touched down on the Red Planet.&nbsp;

The camera's transparent dust cover is still on in this image, to prevent particulates kicked up during landing from settling on the camera's lens. This image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars.

(With agency inputs)

NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.

NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth. The landing data and initial photograph were relayed to Earth from two briefcase-sized satellites that were launched along with InSight and were flying past Mars as it reached its destination. Our Mars Odyssey orbiter phoned home, relaying news from @NASAInSight indicating its solar panels are open & collecting sunlight on the Martian surface. Also in the dispatch: this snapshot from the lander's arm showing the instruments in their new home: https://t.co/WygR5X2Px4 pic.twitter.com/UwzBsu8BNe — NASA (@NASA) November 27, 2018 × The twin "Cubesats" tagging along for the flight to Mars represented the first deep-space use of a miniature satellite technology that space engineers see as a promising low-cost alternative to some larger, more complex vehicles. The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the robotic arm of NASA's InSight lander, took the picture of the Martian surface on November 26, 2018, the same day the spacecraft touched down on the Red Planet. The camera's transparent dust cover is still on in this image, to prevent particulates kicked up during landing from settling on the camera's lens. This image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars. (With agency inputs)

NASA's InSight sends first picture from Mars surface after safe landing

Watch: WION Fineprint, 27th November, 2018

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasas-insight-lands-on-mars-to-peer-into-planets-deep-interior-179634">NASA's InSight spacecraft lands on </a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasas-insight-lands-on-mars-to-peer-into-planets-deep-interior-179634">Mars,</a><a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/nasas-insight-lands-on-mars-to-peer-into-planets-deep-interior-179634"> will study planet's deep interior</a>

NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.

 
<a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/my-advice-to-pm-he-should-exercise-due-restraint-on-use-of-language-manmohan-singh-179639">My advice to PM Modi is, exercise due restraint on language: Manmohan Singh</a>

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra suggesting that PM Modi must exercise due restraint and not use the "type of language which has now become common practice," news agency ANI reported.&nbsp;

The former PM added that the prime minister of a country must set an example for others.&nbsp;

 
<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/trump-says-he-expects-to-raise-china-tariffs-likely-to-be-placed-on-laptops-and-iphones-179635">Trump says he is going to raise tariffs further on China imports</a>

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he expected to move ahead with raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 per cent from the current 10 per cent and repeated his threat to slap tariffs on all remaining imports from China.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal four days ahead of his high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina, Trump said it was "highly unlikely" he would accept China's request to hold off on the increase, which is due to take effect on January 1.

 
<a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/there-were-children-says-migrant-mother-tear-gassed-at-us-border-179650">'There were children,' says migrant mother tear-gassed at US border</a>

A migrant mother photographed running with her daughters from tear gas at the US-Mexico border said she never expected the US Border Patrol to fire gas canisters at children and families.

Three tear gas canisters shot from the US side landed around Maria Meza and her children, who range in age from toddlers to teenagers, she said in an interview at a Tijuana migrant shelter.

 
<a href="http://www.wionews.com/entertainment/aamir-khan-on-thugs-of-hindostan-failure-we-went-wrong-and-i-take-full-responsibility-for-it-179641">Aamir Khan takes 'full responsibility' for Thugs Of Hindostan debacle</a>

t takes courage to accept failure on a public platform. On Monday, Aamir Khan admitted that his last release 'Thugs Of Hindostan' had failed to live up to the expectations and took full resp[onsibility for the film's failure.&nbsp;

“I take full responsibility for 'Thugs....' not working with the audience. I think we went wrong but I would like to take full responsibility of that. You can be sure we tried our level best."

NASA's InSight spacecraft lands on Mars, will study planet's deep interior NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.

NASA's InSight spacecraft lands on Mars, will study planet's deep interior NASA's InSight spacecraft, the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth. My advice to PM Modi is, exercise due restraint on language: Manmohan Singh Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra suggesting that PM Modi must exercise due restraint and not use the "type of language which has now become common practice," news agency ANI reported. The former PM added that the prime minister of a country must set an example for others. Trump says he is going to raise tariffs further on China imports US President Donald Trump said on Monday he expected to move ahead with raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 per cent from the current 10 per cent and repeated his threat to slap tariffs on all remaining imports from China. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal four days ahead of his high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina, Trump said it was "highly unlikely" he would accept China's request to hold off on the increase, which is due to take effect on January 1. 'There were children,' says migrant mother tear-gassed at US border A migrant mother photographed running with her daughters from tear gas at the US-Mexico border said she never expected the US Border Patrol to fire gas canisters at children and families. Three tear gas canisters shot from the US side landed around Maria Meza and her children, who range in age from toddlers to teenagers, she said in an interview at a Tijuana migrant shelter. Aamir Khan takes 'full responsibility' for Thugs Of Hindostan debacle t takes courage to accept failure on a public platform. On Monday, Aamir Khan admitted that his last release 'Thugs Of Hindostan' had failed to live up to the expectations and took full resp[onsibility for the film's failure. “I take full responsibility for 'Thugs....' not working with the audience. I think we went wrong but I would like to take full responsibility of that. You can be sure we tried our level best."

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